76 Bulletin 141. 



The negative outcome of these investigations suggested that possi- 

 bly our methods had been faulty or that some unknown conditions 

 existed which had obscured the cause of death, and that after all the 

 popular diagnosis of an infectious disease was right. Against this 

 theory was the fact that the disease did not spread from the affected 

 herds to others, although, as a rule, precautions were not taken to pre- 

 vent its dissemination, and in some instances the neighboring herds 

 were most favorably situated for contracting the disease if it had been 

 contagious. In certain of the outbreaks the exceedingly filthy condi- 

 tion in which the pens and yards were kept suggested, in the absence 

 of a knowledge of definite, specific agents, that the animals had died 

 as a result of their unsanitary surroundings and unwholesome food, a 

 hypothesis which in some instances is still entertained as being highly 

 probable. However, we were still confronted with the problem that 

 in many outbreaks neither a specific infectious disease could be found 

 nor the exciting cause of death pointed out. 



Although it was apparent that the cause of the deaths was to be 

 found in the food, the feeders of this kind of swill failed to see why 

 they should discontinue its use. Naturally they felt that if we could 

 not find or demonstrate the presence of the destructive agent in the 

 swill the cause of death must be something else, probably hog chol- 

 era, for thousands of hogs are annually raised upon this kind of food. 

 Further, the plea that such garbage was not a suitable or even whole- 

 some food for their animals availed nothing, for the reply was, that 

 usually their pigs thrived upon it. 



Early in the summer, in conversation on this subject with Mr. W. F. 

 Davey, an enterprising farmer living near Brewerton, N. Y., he related 

 the circumstances concerning an outbreak of this kind in which he had 

 traced the cause of the trouble to the soap used in washing the dishes. 

 The swill, including the dish water, was collected from three small 

 hotels and fed to a herd of swine. In a short time the animals began 

 to sicken and many of them died. Upon inquiry it was found that in 

 the hotels large quantities of powdered soap were used in washing the 

 dishes. This was stopped and no more animals died. Later in the 

 .season Dr. J. A. McCrank, of Plattsburg, told me of an outbreak of 

 an apparently infectious disease among swine which had come under 

 his observation and in which he could not make a positive diagnosis. 

 In the investigation of its cause he found that the hogs were being fed 



