[Initial experience with the intravenous administration of colloidal carbon to cattle in relation to the incidence of mastitis].

The influence was studied of intravenous application of colloid carbon to ten dairy cows of Bohemian Spotted breed in the seventh to eighth months of gravidity, as exerted on the health condition of mammary glands and on milk yield in the subsequent lactation. The cure consisted of three i. v. installations in 72-hour intervals; one dose contained 150 mg carbon in 20 ml of 20% glucose. No adverse by-effects were observed in the course of application and after it. During the subsequent lactation period (nine months) the test cows exhibited a better health condition of mammary glands if compared with the control group (ten dairy cows). In the test group no case was recorded of the clinical form of mastitis while in the control group one case of acute mastitis and two cases of chronic mastitis occurred. S. agalactiae was not isolated at all in the test group while in the control group it was isolated in two cows. S. aureus was also isolated more times (in 32 cases) in the control cows than in the test ones (in 27 cases). A higher average counts of cells in udder-quarter milk samples were found in the test group only at the onset of lactation (from the third month after calving), the average counts of cells over the whole period under study were however lower in the test group (1 380 000 per ml) than in the control group (1 234 000 per ml). The average daily milk yield per cow in the test group exceeded the average milk production in the control group in the period of study. An increase by 1.630 1 as compared with the untreated cow was observed in the average milk yield. It has been demonstrated by the results that by the intravenous instillation of colloid carbon nonspecific natural defensive mechanisms of dairy cows, mainly leucocytes, are stimulated, which enhanced the cell readiness to react to infectious process (mastitis) and overall injury of the organism (sepsis).