COLOSTRIC ANTIBODIES
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Excerpt
The demonstration by Schneider and Szathmary1 of Budapest of an abrupt rise in specific antibody titer of the blood serum of newborn calves following the first feeding of colostrum is confirmatory evidence in support of current belief as to the mechanism of post-partum transfer of maternal immunity. Veterinarians suggested long ago for the prevention of tuberculosis the immediate separation of newborn calves from their diseased mothers in infected herds, the young to be reared by healthy foster mothers or by artificial feeding. In spite of the most careful hygienic measures, however, almost all calves thus isolated developed gastrointestinal disease, joint disease or septicemia, fully 80 per cent of them dying within the first few days. Necropsies showed that these deaths were not due to the ordinary contagious diseases but to invasion of the living tissues with the commoner environmental saprophytes. Evidently the calf at birth is unprepared to resist
