STATE DAIRY ASSOCIATION. 489 



ANTHRAX. 



As these experiments were going on his daughter said one day: 

 "Father wears the look of an approaching discovery." 



When the details of these experiments were rehearsed in the Fi'ench 

 Academy, they were met by every form of incredulity. It was allowed to 

 be "romance," "too good to be true," etc.; but a farmer, whose stock was 

 dying, asked for a public experiment on his farm. Pasteur went to his 

 farm, selected ten oxen, forty-eight sheep and two goats. Of these, one- 

 half — five oxen, twenty-four sheep and one goat— wei'e selected for treat- 

 ment. These were vaccinated with a weak virus, and when they had fully 

 recovered they were again vaccinated with a virus somewhat stronger. 

 When they had again recovered, the public experiment took place in the 

 presence of many newspaper reporters, scientific men and stock breeders. 



All the selected cattle, sheep and goats were inoculated with virulent 

 anthrax. This was done with the same syringe and in alternation; tliat 

 is, first one tliat Pasteur had treated and then one that he had not. 

 Pasteur invited the guests to return after forty-eight hours, predicting 

 that the goat and sheep not treated would be dead, and that the cattle not 

 treated would be swollen at the joints and sick with the fever; that all 

 previously vaccinated by him, however— the goat, the five cattle and the 

 twenty-four sheep— would be standing in their stalls, eating hay. When 

 they met again, in two days, such a shout of victory went up as never by 

 right had rent the air of France. Twenty-three of the twenty-four sheep 

 not treated were dead and the other died in a couple of hours; the goat 

 was dead, and all the cattle were sick. Every head of the vaccinated 

 stock was well and eating hay. This meant the victory over pestilence. 



The discovery of the cause and cure of this disease did not satisfy 

 Pasteur; there was much mystery about it still. Upland cattle rarely had 

 the disease; lowland cattle rarely escaped it. Pasteur visited the low- 

 lands to ascertain, if possible, the conditions there and the life history of 

 the anthrax bacillus. It was the habit of the farmers to drag the bleeding 

 cattle that had died over the grass to some suitable place for burial. 

 Stock that ate this blood-stained grass caught the disease. Worms de- 

 voured the dead bodies of the cattle, and, coming up to the surface, left the 

 deadly germs in their castings on the grass. This is not guess work. Pas- 

 teur found germs in the bodies of the worms, and reared others from their 

 castings. There were no worms in the uplands. The conditions furnished 

 a complete explanation. Fig. IV. 



HOG CHOLERA. 



Our hogs get the cholera germs generally from the water they drink. 

 The disease as a scourge can be prevented by giving the hogs deep well 

 water or spring water or boiled water. West River and Nettle Creek are 

 two small streams in northern Wayne County, some two miles apart. 

 Among the hills that form the water shed between them are many springs. 



