Let Sleeping Vets Lie

by James Herriot

  that young Metcalfets been brought up in a town, he's still got it in

  'im - he's got it through the titty, don't you see, through the titty."

  Maybe he was right, but whether Frank had it through the titty or

  through study and brains he had transformed the holding in a short time.

  When he wasn't milking, feeding, mucking out, he was slaving at that

  little byre, chipping stones, mixing cement, sand and dust clinging to

  the sweat on his face. And now, as he said, he was ready to start.

  As we came out of the dairy he pointed to another old building across

  the yard. "When I'm straightened out I aim to convert that into another

  byre. I've had to borrow a good bit but now I'm TT I should be able to

  clear it off in a couple of years. Sometime in the future if all goes

  well I might be able to get a bigger place altogether."

  He was about my own age and a natural friendship had sprung up between

  us. We used to sit under the low beams of his cramped living room with

  its single small window and sparse furniture and as his young wife

  poured cups of tea he liked to talk of his plans. And, listening to him,

  I always felt that a man like him would do well not only for himself but

  for farming in general.

  I looked at him now as he turned his head and gazed for a few moments

  round his domain. He didn't have to say: "I love this place, I feel I

  belong here." It was all there in his face, in the softening of his eyes

  as they moved over the huddle of grass fields cupped in a hollow of the

  fells. These fields, clawed by past generations from the rough hillside

  and fighting their age-old battle with heather and bracken, ran up to a

  ragged hem of cliff and scree and above you could just see the lip of

  the moor - a wild land of bog and peat hag. Below, the farm track

  disappeared round the bend of a wooded hill. The pastures were poor and

  knuckles of rock pushed out in places through the thin soil, but the

  clean, turf-scented air and the silence must have been like a

  deliverance after the roar and smoke of the steel-works.

  "Well we'd better see that cow, Frank," I said. "The new byre nearly

  made me forget what I came for."

  "Aye, it's this red and white 'un. My latest purchase and she's never

  been right since I got her. Hasn't come on to her milk properly and she

  seems dosy, somehow."

  The temperature was a hundred and three and as I put the thermometer

  away I sniffed. "She smells a bit, doesn't she?"

  "Aye," Frank said. "I've noticed that myself."

  "Better bring me some hot water, then. I'll have a feel inside."

  The uterus was filled with a stinking exudate and as I withdrew my arm

  there was a gush of yellowish, necrotic material. "Surely she must have

  had a bit of a discharge," I said.

  Frank nodded. "Yes, she has had, but I didn't pay much attention - a lot

  of them do it when they're clearing up after calving."

  I drained the uterus by means of a rubber tube and irrigated it with

  antiseptic, then I pushed in a few acriflavine pessaries. "That'll help

  to clean her up, and I think she'll soon be a lot better in herself, but

  I'm going to take a blood sample "Why's that?"

  Well it may be nothing, but I don't like the look of that yellow stuff.

  It consists of decayed~cotyledones - you know, the berries on the calf

  bed - and when they're that colour it's a bit suspicious of

  Brucellosis."

  "Abortion, you mean?" :

  "It's possible, Frank. She may have calved before her time or she may

  have calved normally but still been infected. Anyway the blood will tell

  us. Keep her isolated in the meantime."

  A few days later at breakfast time in Skeldale House I felt a quick stab

  of anxiety as I opened the lab report and read that the agglutination

  test on the blood had given a positive result. I hurried out to the

  farm.

  "How long have you had this cow?" I asked.

  "Just over three weeks," the young farmer replied.

  "And she's been running in the same field as your other cows and the

  in-calf heifers ?" +.

  "Yes, all the time." :

  I paused for a moment. "Frank, I'd better tell you the implications. I

  know you'll want to know what might happen. The source of infection in

  Brucellosis is the discharges of an infected cow and I'm afraid this

  animal of yours will have thoroughly contaminated that pasture. Any or

  all of your animals may have picked up the bug."

  "Does that mean they'll abort?"

  . : . :, , .

  :

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  , L "Not necessarily. It varies tremendously. Many cows carry their

  calves through`' despite infection." I was doing my best to sound

  optimistic. ;

  Frank dug his hands deep into his pockets. His thin, dark-complexioned

  face was serious. "Damn, I wish I'd never seen the thing. I bought her

  at Houlton market - God knows where she came from, but it's too late to

  talk like that now What can we do about the job?"

  "The main thing is to keep her isolated and away from the other stock. I

  wish there was some way to protect the others but there isn't much we

  can do. There are only two types of vaccine - live ones which can only

  be given to empty cow" and yours are all in-calf, and dead ones which

  aren't reckoned to he of much use."

  "Well I'm the sort that doesn't like to just sit back and wait. The dead

  vaccine; won't do any harm if it doesn't do any good, will it?"

  "No."

  "Right, let's do 'em all with it and we'll hope for the best."

  Hoping for the best was something vets did a lot of in the thirties. I

  vaccinated" the entire herd and we waited.

  Nothing happened for a full eight weeks. Summer lengthened into autumn:

  and the cattle were brought inside. The infected cow improved, her

  discharge cleared up and she began to milk a bit better. Then Frank rang

  early once morning.

  "I've found a dead calf laid in the channel when I went in to milk. Will

  you come ?"

  It was a thinly-haired seven months foetus that I found. The cow looked

  sick and behind her dangled the inevitable retained placenta. Her udder

  which, if; she had calved normally would have been distended with milk,

  the precious milk Frank depended on for his livelihood, was almost

  empty.

  Obsessed by a feeling of helplessness I could only offer the same old

  advice isolate, disinfect - and hope.

  A fortnight later one of the in-calf heifers did it - she was a pretty

  little Jersey cross which Frank had hoped would push up his butter fat

  percentage - and a week after that one of the cows slipped a calf in her

  sixth month pregnancy.

  It was when I was visiting this third case that I met Mr. Bagley. Frard

  introduced him somewhat apologetically. "He says he has a cure for this

  trouble, Jim. He wants to talk to you about it."

  In every sticky situation there is always somebody who knows better than

  the vet. Subconsciously I suppose I had been waiting for a Mr. Bagley to

  turn up and I listened patiently He was very shor
t with bandy legs in

  cloth leggings, and he looked up at me intently. "Young man, I've been

  through this on ma own farm and ah wouldn't be here today if I hadn't

  found the remedy."

  "I see, and what was that, Mr. Bagley?"

  "I have it 'ere." The little man pulled a bottle from his jacket pocket.

  "It's a bit mucky - it's been stood in t'cow house window for a year or

  two."

  I read the label. "Professor Driscoll's Abortion Cure. Give two

  table-spoonsful to each cow in the herd in a pint of water and repeat on

  the following day." The professor's face took up most of the label. He

  was an aggressive-looking, profusely whiskered man in a high Victorian

  collar and he glared out at me belligerently through a thick layer of

  dust. He wasn't so daft, either, because lower down the bottle I read.

  "If an animal has aborted a dose of this mixture will prevent further

  trouble." He knew as well as I did that they didn't often do it more

  than once.

  "Yes," Mr. Bagley said. "That's the stuff. Most of my cows did it on me

  but I kept going" with the medicine and they were right as a bobbin next

  time round."

  "But they would be in any case. They develop an immunity you see."

  Mr. Bagley put his head on one side and gave a gentle unbelieving smile.

  And who was I to argue, anyway? I hadn't a thing to offer.

  "OK, Frank," I said wearily. "Go ahead - like my vaccine, I don't

  suppose it can do any harm."

  A fresh bottle of Driscoll's cure was purchased and little Mr. Bagley

  supervised the dosing of the herd. He was cock-a-hoop when, three weeks

  later, one of the cows calved bang on time.

  "Now then, what do you say, young man? Ma stuff's working already, isn't

  it ?"

  "Well I expected some of them to calve normally," I replied and the

  little man pursed his lips as though he considered me a bad loser.

  But I wasn't really worried about what he thought; all I felt was an

  unhappy resignation. Because this sort of thing was always happening in

  those days before the modern drugs appeared. Quack medicines abounded on

  the farms and the vets couldn't say a lot about them because their own

  range of pharmaceuticals was pitifully inadequate.

  And in those diseases like abortion which had so far defeated all the

  efforts of the profession at control the harvest for the quack men was

  particularly rich. The farming press and country newspapers were filled

  with confident advertisements of red drenches, black draughts, pink

  powders which were positively guaranteed to produce results. Professor

  Driscoll had plenty of competition.

  When shortly afterwards another cow calved to time Mr. Bagley was very

  nice about it. "We all 'ave to learn, young man, and you haven't had

  much practical experience. You just hadn't heard of my medicine and I'm

  not blaming you, but I think we're on top of t'job now."

  I didn't say anything. Frank was beginning to look like a man who could

  see a gleam of hope and I wasn't going to extinguish it by voicing my

  doubts. Maybe the outbreak had run its course - these things were

  unpredictable.

  But the next time I heard Frank on the phone all my gloomy forebodings

  were realised "I want you to come out and cleanse three cows."

  "Three!"

  "Aye, they did it one after the other - bang, bang, bang. And all before

  time. It's an absolute bugger, Jim - I don't know what I'm going to do."

  He met me as I got out of the car at the top of the track. He looked ten

  years older, his face pale and haggard as though he hadn't slept. Mr.

  Bagley was there, too, digging a hole in front of the byre door.

  "What's he doing?" I asked.

  Frank looked down at his boots expressionlessly. "He's burying one of

  the calves. He says it does a lot of good if you put it in front of the

  door." He looked at me with an attempt at a smile. "Science can do nowt

  for me so we might as well try a bit of black magic."

  I felt a few years older myself as I picked my way round the deep grave

  Mr. Bagley was digging. The little man looked up at me as I passed.

  "This is a very old remedy," he explained. "Ma medicine seems to be

  losing its power so we'll have to try summat stronger. The trouble is,"

  he added with some asperity. "I was called in on this case far too

  late."

  I removed the putrefying afterbirths from the three cows and got off the

  place as soon as possible. I felt such a deep sense of shame that I

  could hardly meet Frank's eye. And it was even worse on my next visit a

  fortnight later because as I walked across the yard I was conscious of a

  strange smell polluting the sweet hill air. It was a penetrating, acrid

  stink and though it rang a bell somewhere I couldn't quite identify it.

  As Frank came out of the house he saw me sniffing and looking round.

  "Not very nice is it?" he said with a tired smile. "I don't believe

  you've met our goat."

  "You've got a goat?"

  "Well, we've got the loan of one - an old Billy. I don't see him around

  right now but by God you can always smell him. Mr. Bagley dug 'im up

  somewhere - says he did one of his neighbours a world of good when he

  was having my trouble. Burying the calves wasn't doing any good so he

  thought he'd better bring on the goat. It's the smell that does the

  trick, he says."

  "Frank, I'm sorry," I said. "It's still going on, then?"

  He shrugged his shoulders. "Aye, two more since I saw you. But I'm past

  worrying now, Jim, and for God's sake stop looking so bloody miserable

  yourself. You can't do anything, I know that. Nobody can do anything."

  Driving home, I brooded on his words. Contagious Bovine Abortion has

  been recognised for centuries and I had read in old books of the filthy

  scourge which ravaged and ruined the ancient farmers just as it was

  doing to Frank Metcalfe today. The experts of those days said it was due

  to impure water, improper feeding, lack of exercise, sudden frights.

  They did note, however, that other cows which were allowed to sniff at

  the foetuses and afterbirths were likely to suffer the same fate

  themselves. But beyond that it was a black tunnel of ignorance.

  We modern vets, on the other hand, knew all about it. We knew it was

  caused" by a Gram negative bacillus called Brucella abortus whose habits

  and attributes we had studied till we knew its every secret; but when it

  came to helping a. farmer in Frank's situation we were about as much use

  as our colleagues of old; who wrote those quaint books. True, dedicated

  researchers were working to find.; a strain of the bacillus which would

  form a safe and efficient vaccine to immunise cattle in calfhood and as

  far back as 1930 a certain strain 19 had been developed from which much

  was hoped. But even now it was still in the experimental stage. If Frank

  had had the luck to be born twenty years later the chances are. that

  those cows he bought would have all been vaccinated and protected by

  that same strain 19. Nowadays we even have an efficient dead vaccine for

  the pregnant cows.

  .:

  Best of all there is now a scheme u
nder way for the complete eradication

  of grucellosis and this has brought the disease to the notice of the

  general public. People are naturally interested mainly in the public

  health aspect and they have learned about the vast spectrum of illnesses

  which the infected milk can cause in humans But few townsmen know what

  Brucellosis can do to farmers.

  The end of Frank's story was not far away. Autumn was reaching into

  winter and the frost was sparkling on the steps of Skeldale House when

  he called one night to see me. We went into the big room and I opened a

  couple of bottles of beer.

  "I thought I'd come and tell you, Jim," he said in a matter of fact

  tone. "I'm having to pack up."

  "Pack up?" Something in me refused to accept what he was saying.

  "Aye, I'm going back to me old job in Middlesbrough. There's nowt else

  to do."

  I looked at him helplessly. "It's as bad as that, is it?"

  "Well just think." He smiled grimly. "I have three cows which calved

  normally out of the whole herd. The rest are a mucky, discharging,

  sickly lot with no milk worth talking about. I've got no calves to sell

  or keep as replacements. I've got nowt."

  I hesitated. "There's no hope of raising the wind to get you over this?"

  "No, Jim. If I sell up now I'll just about be able to pay the bank what