The misery of mastitis in 1883

Nocard and Mollereau were the first to demonstrate that mastitis was caused by a microorganism, later to be named Streptocoocus agalactiae. However, they were also the first to describe the miserable situation of a farm that was chronically affected by the disease. This is also interesting, especially from the point of view of social and economic history of animal disease.

I follow their description here, originally written in French [1].

“The observation to be described here will give insight into this remarkable affection [i.e. chronic mastits], the route it follows in the affected stables and its great tenacity.

In the last month of december [1883] one of us was consulted by a cattle farmer, his client, concerning an illness that prevailed at his farm and that made a great part of the milk that was produced absolutely unfit for consumption. Six years ago the disease appeared at this farm in the form of an induration in one of the milk glands with a serious alteration of the milk that was secreted. A veterinarian who was then consulted believed he had to do with a chronic mastitis and advised embrocations of campher ointments; next the disease hit a great number of the cows of the same stable without the owner asking again for the veterinarian, so that at the moment he called for us the farmer had already wasted almost three hunderd francs of campher ointment. In fact, more than eighty cows were one after the other hit by the same affection despite the ointment and the prayers and all kinds of conjurations that the owner had tried to put to work.

After six years more than half of the cows that had been held in these stables had payed tribute to this formidable disease; three weeks or one month after their purchase an udder began to form knots (a hard knot developed in the gland). The milk that was produced maintained its aspect and external characteristics but only diminished immediately in quantity; next it coagulated faster until it could no longer be kept; it had to be dristibuted among hurried clients. In the end it became watery, gritty, with a yellowish colour, sometimes evil-smelling, only to be brought to the dung-hill. Mixing it with good milk was sufficient to make coagulate the whole of the milk almost immediately. From then on the affected gland had to be considered as lost and the yeld of the cow diminished with one quarter.

When two quarters were hit, it was necessary to bring the animal to the butcher, because the yield of the two healthy quarters did not compensate for the loss of the farmer. In addition, although the general health of the cow seemed not affected, it was more difficult to fatten up, resulting in a cow, bought for giving milk, that was not even good enough for the meat.

One may understand that the exploitation of the cattle farm, continuing under these conditions for six years, was far from giving the benefits that had been expected with good reason.  In addition, the farmer, running out of resources and courage, was on the point of leaving the profession, when he got the idea to consult us.“

And out came the bacteria as a cause of mastitis. And a therapy.

[1] [E.] Nocard en [H.] Mollereau, ‘Sur une mammite contagieuse des vaches laitières.’ Annales de l’Institut Pasteur 1 (1887) 109-126

Blue milk

In the first half of the nineteenth century milk was found to have all kinds of different colours, mainly, it was thought, because of the cows eating plants which stained the milk. In my last message of 11 september 2013 I cited the ideas of Vallot about the colour, and other alterations, of milk. This message of today is about blue milk.

Vallot stated that the cause of blue milk is unknown but suspected that the eating of hyacint plants could be involved. Alexander Numan (1780-1852), director and teacher of almost every subject to be taught at the the Dutch Veterinary School, thought more about it. In his lecture notebooks, preserved in the library of Utrecht University, he mentions a list of plants that may be the cause of blue milk; what those plants had in common is that they contained indigo-like compounds that may have an effect on milk, Numan lectured, when the digestion of the animal is incomplete and when those compounds are not “decomposed and equilized”. He wondered why it is that the colours are not transferred to the butter but stay dissolved in the whey[1].

Almost two decades later, in 1841, C.J.Fuchs published the results of a study in which he showed that the blue colour of milk could be attributed to a contagium of which Fuchs was of the opinion that it was an infusorium of the genus Vibrio, observed by him in the milk. As long as milk was normal no infusoria were observed. Fumigation with chlorine was not sufficient to fight the Vibrio: Fuchs prescribed treatment of utensils, udders and milker’s hands with boiling lime [2]. With regard to the hygienic measures for preventing mastitis, to be applied several decades later, I consider this an interesting prescription.

The discussion about blue milk was brought to a new phase by Friederich Mosler, professor of (human) internal medicine (and other disciplines) in Greifswald (Germany). Mosler published a paper[3] in 1868 about blue milk, because he was confronted with a family of which some of the members became ill with gastritis after having consumed milk with a blue colour. In his paper Mosler gives an overview of the many plants that may give the milk this colour (hyacints were not mentioned, but some of Numan’s plants were) and then starts to describe what really matters when people are drinking blue milk. The difference between milk stained blue by plants and blue milk as a cause of gastritis was that when the latter was left standing for several days it became covered with a thick blue skin. Mosler studied this layer with the microscope and found blue-stained fungi in it, which he compared to known fungi and of which he made some drawings which he included in his paper (see below).

So instead of resolving the problem of blue milk, Fuchs and Mosler added a new problem, that of contaminated milk. This latter became much more important, because of food safety and food hygiene. The problem of the milk becoming blue by plants silently disappeared from the academic interest.

  

Drawing by Mosler (1868) of fungi in blue milk.

A: partly stained fungus; B and C: stained casein particles; D: unstained butter droplets

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[1] A.Numan, Kort zamenstel der algemeene veertsenijkundige ziektekunde strekkende tot een leidraad der voorleezingen over dezelve (Short composition of general veterinary pathology meant as a guide to the lectures about it) HS 13 A 1 (1823), par. 124, p. 126.

[2] The original publication was abstracted by Wellenbergh from a paper in a German journal edited by Gult and Herwig of 1841: F.H.J.Wellenbergh, ‘Uitbreiding der Veertsenijkunde in de jaren 1841, 1842 en 1843.’ Numan’s Veeartsenijkundig Magazijn V, II (1846) 81-281.

[3] F.Mosler. Ueber blaue milch und durch deren Genuss herbeigeführte Erkrankungen beim Menschen. (On blue milk and the diseases of man caused by its consumption). Archiv für pathologische Anatomie, 1868, 43, 161-181.

Colourful milk

In the Receuil des Médécines Vétérinaires of 1826 a description was given of the alterations of milk, mainly of its colour and taste, by Vallot.[1] It is an overview of the then known pathological changes of milk, and most of them are supposed to be caused by plants eaten by the animals. The translation and editing/summarizing of the text is mine. The Latin plantnames given in brackets are those given by Vallot.

1. Red milk, known for a long time, but the cause of this colour is unknown; one only knows that it has given rise to ridiculous fables and lamentable superstitions. Some agriculturists, attributing it to a disease of the teat, which is more soft, may have mentioned it as a result only; it remains for more precise observers to decide.

2. Yellow milk is produced, it is said, by kingcup (Caltha palustris) eaten by the cow; but this cause is doubtful.

3. Blue milk: the real cause is unknown. According to some agriculturists it has to be attributed to the eating of hyacinth (Hyacinyhus comosus).

4. Green milk is simply blue milk.

5. Non-coagulating milk is produced by the intake of the husks of green peas and of mint.

6. Bitter milk is given by cows when they eat absinth (Artemisia absinthium), alpine milkweed (Sonchus alpinum), and leaves of the artichok (Cynara scolymus), and by goats who have eaten a large quantity of shoots of elder (Sambucus nigra) and foliage of potatoes (Solanum tuberosum).

7. Unappetizing milk is produced by cows in Upper Canada, fed with turnips, instead of [squach][2]; only mentioned here to remember.

8. Milk with the taste of dung. In the Northern countries, when cows eat seaweed, their milk may contract a taste of dung.

9. Garlic milk. This type of milk is well known; it is due to plants with a smell of garlic eaten by the cows, and the number of those plants is considerable.

10. Milk without taste and the butter of it with a colour of lead is given by cows eating horsetail (Equisetum fluviatile).

11. Sweetend milk from meadows in Les Landes is given by cows that graze on alpine clover (Trifolium alpinum).

12. Red butter. This colour is given to butter by the currant-juice of asparagus; but it is not yet known whether the samples taken from the butter, at our markets, that have this colour are constantly due to this cause.

Monsieur Vallot may have been a collector of agricultural data about milk. According to the subtitle of this paper he presented this list at a session of the Académie des Science in Dijon in 1825. The same subtitle also mentions that this list has been extracted from a medical bulletin. Like so many learned men in his days he may have been eager to present his collection  to the society of which he was a member.

The collection does not show a clear pattern, except that most but not all of the alterations are caused by plants. Some of them he only knows from reports of others (Canada), some causes are assumptions only like the yellow and the blue milk, and the first alteration, the red milk, is placed in the middle of an apparently ongoing controversy about the cause that may be a disease. What he does not mention is, that, even in his days, the red colour of the milk has been attributed also to blood in the milk because of an inflammation.

Nevertheless, Vallot stood in a tradition of classifying abberrations of milk as a separate class of pathology, subdivided in smaller groups, of which qualitative alterations, such as blue, souring, bitter, tough and watery milk were seen as caused by the eating of plants.

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[1] M[onsieur] Vallot. Du lait considéré dans ses alterations physiologiques. Receuils des Médécines Vétérinaires, 3, 1826, 171-173

[2] I was unable to find a translation for the name of this plant; some googling suggested that it should be read as squash and may be a pumpkin. Maybe readers (from Canada?) can help me.

Treating mastitis in 1815

Early in the nineteenth century James White, veterinary  surgeon of the First or Royal Dragoons in Exeter, UK, published a four volume Treatise of Veterinary Medicine. The books were very popular and the first volume reached eleven editions. The treatise mainly described problems and diseases of horses, but volume 4 (one edition only) dealt also with diseases of cattle. A very small chapter was describing mastitis[1]. It went as follows:

CHAPTER XX.

Inflammation and Swelling of the Udder,

This disease attacks cows about the time of calving, and is sometimes so considerable, as to cause an abscess to form. As soon as it is observed, let the animal be bled freely, and take a pound of Epsom salt [magnesium sulfate], dissolved in a quart of gruel, to which a little castor or linseed oil may be added. The swollen udder should be frequently fomented with a decoction of mallows, elder, or hemlock[2]. The best method of doing this is to dip large woollen cloths in the hot decoction, and, after wringing, let them be applied so as to cover the whole udder: this process should be continued for some time, and repeated several times a day. When, by these means, the inflammation has been removed, some degree of hard, but not painful swelling, may remain: to disperse this, the following liniment may be rubbed on the part once or twice a day.

LINIMENT

Take of linseed oil  4 ½ oz.

Oil of turpentine 1 oz.

Liquor of ammonia ½  oz.

Mix.

That was all.

Is the treatment proposed here rubbish, or quackery? Or is it reliable knowledge?

Reliability of knowledge, all knowledge, should be weighed against its context. The context of this treatment of inflammation of the udder is the background knowledge of (veterinary) medicine of those days, which was based on humoral pathology and herbal and mineral medicine. Veterinarians trusted the knowledge and thought it reliable, partly because of training, partly because of experience, which itself was of course evaluated and interpreted in terms and theories of this same background knowledge. Hence bloodletting to reduce fever.  

But Epsom salt was interesting for two reasons. First I discovered that Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate. To find out what it does I consulted PubMed, by searching for the combination of magnesium sulfate and inflammation. To my surprise I found a lot of very recent articles, studying the effect of magnsesium sulfate on inflammatory processes and on the role of cytokines and it may even have immunomodulatory potential. So here seemed to be the modern justification for the use of Epsom salt in the treatment of udder inflammation. But then I consulted White again. The second volume of his Treatment contains the Materia Medica and Pharmacopeia[3] and is in essence a pharmaceutical encyclopedia. Under Epsom salt we find that magnesium sulfate is a common remedy used because of its laxative effect, again according to the old humoral ideas about body fluids.

Is it possible that veterinarians in 1815 treated inflammations of the udder directly, without knowing it? Is it reliable knowledge even to our own, modern standards?

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[1] James White. A treatise on veterinary medicine. London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown 1815. volume IV, p.71-72

[2] For Dutch readers: gruel is dunne graanpap, castor oil is wonderolie, foment with a decoction of mallows, elder, or hemlock is betten met een afkooksel van malve, vlier of dollekervel.

 [3] James White. A treatise on veterinary medicine. London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown 1816. volume II. The contents of White's books may be consulted at Google Books.

The oldest mention of mastitis known to me at this moment is a small remark in a very long report about the state of agriculture in the Kingdom of Holland in 1808. It may be found in Jan Kops' Magazijn der Vaderlandsche Landbouw, covering the whole of crops and animal production. Here we find a remark which goes as follows: “In Groningen it was especially unfavourable with cattle: during the summer it stayed healthy enough, except that in the Colonies [East-Friesland, annexed from Germany in Napoleontic times, BN] one was distressed by swollen udders…”[1]

In the Dutch text the word "jadders" (uiers) was used, a word related to the English "udders", but in Dutch it is not in use anymore.

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[1] Jan Kops: Magazijn van Vaderlandsche Landbouw vol VI, Haarlem, Loosjes, 1810, 118-119

To be consulted on the internet pages of Google: http://books.google.nl/books?id=U1RNAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=nl&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

About this blog

About this blog

This is a weblog for data, opinions, anecdotes, and remarkable facts from the Philosophy and History of Animal Science and other issues in the field of biomedical science.

My main interest at this moment is mastitis, the inflammation of the udder of ruminants (cows and goats mainly).

The history of mastitis may go as far back as  possible although the more exciting developments may take place after 1880.

The philosophy of mastitis may deal with everything that is concerned with questions of the reliability of biomedical knowledge of this disease and others and with the social influences on this knowledge. In the case of mastitis it may not be surprising that economy is one of those influences.

I hope the reader may find it interesting and will be challenged to send comments, other facts, data, anecdotes and opinions.

Rodin’s Penseur, contemplating the Lion of Androcles, is, of course, a parody of the Androclus logo of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Utrecht University of which I was a member for a long time (Henk Halsema made the drawing).