Short Communication

Abstract

I don't think anyone would doubt that what Ed Bohl has said is correct, that you would get very good immunity by using the procedure he has described. The question is whether it is a desirable thing to do or not. Of course, he is talking about a method of control in which you are presenting animals with very large numbers of pathogenic organisms at a time when they are not susceptible to the clinical disease themselves. The opposite side of that spectrum is the way in which we control diseases like foot and mouth and swine fever in this country on a national basis whereby our aim is to keep a parasite away from the host on a national boundary scale. If infection does occur, we follow a slaughter policy and for diseases like foot and mouth in this country it has worked tolerably well. With swine fever it has worked remarkably well; this is because swine fever virus does not last long outside the body and it is not highly infectious.