Bovine Genital Trichomoniasis

BOVINE GENITAL TRICHOMONIASIS is a disease of cattle characterized by difläculties in breeding, early abortions, temporary sterility, and pyometra (accumulation of pus in the uterus), without an accompanying fever. The causative organism, technically named Trichomonas foetus^ was first observed in association with genital disease of cattle by Mazzanti {Sy in Italy in 1900. He found it in the genital tracts of two cows and one heifer that were slaughtered because of permanent sterility. He considered it to be the cause of the sterility and named it Trichomonas uterovaginulis vitulae. The literature contains no further reference to trichomonads in connection with genital disease of cattle until 1925, when Drescher {3) reported finding them in pure culture in a bovine fetus aborted at 7 months. This rather striking 25-year lapse was probably due to the fact that since Bang's discovery in 1897 {2) of the organism causing infectious abortion in cattle, the idea that genital disease of cattle manifested by abortion, uterine infection, and sterility was Bang's disease, or brucellosis, dominated the thinking of veterinarians in this field. Only when breeding troubles occurred in the demonstrated absence of BriweUa abortus were they attributed to other causes, such as coital exanthema {9).