No. 5. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 101 



condemnation was justified. About 300 such autopsies have been 

 made and no mistakes have been found. It is often difficult to con- 

 vince the owner that his horse has glanders when it is perfectly 

 healthy so far as anybody can see. The State could safely pay an 

 owner full value in every case where a mistake is made. The owner 

 would be more easily convinced at times if the State could pay him 

 full value if a mistake should be made. 



Glanders is seldom seen in the rural section of the State. It is 

 much less common now than in previous years in the large cities and 

 should be exterminated entirely. This could be done rather easily 

 if we were not compelled to purchase horses from other states. It 

 was considered wise to close the public drinking fountains in Phila- 

 delphia during the past summer to prevent the further spread of 

 what promised to be rather a large outbreak of glanders. The dis- 

 ease soon subsided and the troughs and fountains were again opened 

 in the fall. 



Much more security is felt now in raising hogs; the last census 

 shows a decided increase in our swine valuation — it is now fl5,- 

 594,000, which is nearly double the valuation of 1900, Most of the 

 security has been brought about by a better understanding of hog 

 cholera. The disease would often wipe out a good herd of hogs in a 

 few days and the owner was helpless to prevent or cure the disease. 

 In anti-hog cholera serum we have a safe and efficient means of pre- 

 vention. Much more can be accomplished now than in former times 

 by careful sanitary measures. Most hog raisers know how the 

 disease is spread and can fight it successfully with sanitary measures. 

 More might be done in this line. There is a tendency to depend too 

 much on medicine and vaccination even by those intelligently in- 

 terested. Pennsylvania still uses the serum method of vaccination 

 alone and then only in infected herds. Many other states are still 

 practicing the simultaneous method and in most cases it will be ob- 

 served that the disease is more widely spread than it was before 

 vaccination was discovered. The simultaneous method of vaccina- 

 tion may be good for the individual breeder, but for the State and 

 country at large there can be no doubt of its being a menace to the 

 hog raising industry when it is used indiscriminately. In the simul- 

 taneous method of vaccination the virus is given to produce hog 

 cholera, then the serum is given to check the disease and make it run 

 a mild course. The nearer the victim comes to dying and lives, the 

 more sure are his chances for obtaining a lasting immunity. Every 

 farm upon which the simultaneous method of vaccination is used 

 may be considered an infected farm and the disease can be spread 

 from such farms in the same way as from a farm where the disease 

 has occurred accidentally. If serum alone is used in an infected 

 herd, the immunity is just as lasting as where the disease is produced 

 purposely by injecting virus. 



The simultaneous method of treatment would not be so bad if its 

 use were confined to infected herds only. In these it is not necessary 

 for the reason that the disease will be contracted accidentally. 

 Where virus is used on sound and uninfected herds, the premises 

 become infected and should be looked upon as a menace to hogs in 

 the neighborhood. The more herds vaccinated in this way, the 

 greater the danger to the hog raising community, unless the system 

 is continued as far as the industrv extends. The simultaneous 



