122 AGRICULTURE OE MAINE. 



subsequent trouble which may be complicated with this disease. 

 The disease runs itself out very quickly, and only good nursing 

 is necessary. The mouth should be washed out with alum and 

 borax, or some such astringent fluid, and the feet should be well 

 taken care of. Good dry bedding should be provided, never 

 moist, dirty bedding. Perhaps when the feet become very sore 

 it would be well to use an antiseptic foot wash. Carbolic acid 

 and glycerine is very good. Great care should be taken with the 

 feet to keep them as clean as possible. This is a precaution 

 simply to prevent complications. You can easily see that after 

 these vesicles have burst we have open sores, and we all know 

 how easy it is for an open sore to become infected, and make 

 serious trouble, sometimes resulting in swelling of the limbs 

 and blood poisoning, from the effect of which the animal dies. 

 What is the cause' of the foot and mouth disease? That is 

 a simple question to answer, because we do not know. It has 

 been sought for many, many years by scientific men the world 

 over. It is supposed that the disease is caused by some form of 

 bacterium, such as many infectious diseases are caused by, but 

 the germ has never been discovered. Much work is being done 

 along this line. At present in Germany there are at least two 

 commissions, of which I know, which are appointed by the state 

 simply and purely for the investigation of this disease, to find 

 its cause, and they have been working for at least six years and 

 as yet have not made the desired discovery. They have, how- 

 ever, added very much to our knowledge. Most infectious dis- 

 eases are caused by germs, by bacteria, and we know that these 

 batceria are visible. We can see them with the highest powers 

 of the microscope. Moreover, we can cultivate them artificially, 

 outside of the body, in our laboratories. Now if we take what 

 is known as a culture of these bacteria, a fluid in which countless 

 millions of these germs are growing, and if we force this fluid 

 containing these bacteria through a very fine porcelain filter we 

 know that we can filter off the germs by this means. They do 

 not pass through the filter. It has been discovered in the case 

 of the foot and mouth disease that if we take this serum from 

 the vesicles and force it through a fine porcelain filter, the germ 

 goes through the filter. It goes through the smallest pores of 

 the finest known filter. Consequently this germ, if it is a germ, 

 is exceedingly small, the smallest thing which we can imagine, 



