An Epidemiologist Looks at Calf Disease

Abstract

The meeting theme, "The Present and Future of Bovine Practice," provides an ideal framework for discussion of an epidemiologist's view of calf diseases. The future belongs to those who prepare for it, but preparation for the future does not require clairvoyance. Facing the future challenge of calf health requires that we acknowledge the next decade will bring momentous changes in the feeding, housing and management of calves. Agriculture will advance far more rapidly than veterinary science and individual veterinarians will be effective advisors in calf health programs only if they can avoid "future shock" and cultivate a mentality for applying the age-old concepts of preventive medicine to increasingly complex situations.

Epidemiology is that branch of veterinary science which records the distribution of animal disease in populations, attempts to explain the recorded distributions, and uses the knowledge thus obtained to control disease. In short, epidemiology is an approach which says: if we are carefully tabulate who gets a disease and when and where they get the disease, we can likely learn why they get the disease and can hopefully control future occurrences.