324 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



slaughter of animals, but in a manner which we think will best 

 protect your herd and other herds of the neighborhood. 



Q. You speak of burning the hogs. My experience has been 

 that the other hogs will eat them as soon as they get to cooking. 

 Will that spread the infection? 



A. When the dead hog has become hot enough to kill the 

 germs it does not hurt at all. The well cooked meat is helpful for 

 them; but it is probably not best to allow the other hogs to eat 

 them, especially the intestines, as the heating is not always suffi- 

 cient to kill the infection. 



Q. What do you suggest as to the prevention of this dis- 

 ease? Do you propose to go about over the State curing the dis- 

 ease, and then let the hog breeders be careless or indifferent? 



A. We expect the swine raisers to do their part in every way 

 possible to prevent the spread of the disease, by the quarantine 

 and disinfection measures, which I have already mentioned. 



Q. Have you any knowledge in your years of experience of 

 a herd where cholera had broken out spontaneously, caused by 

 local conditions? 



A. Cholera does not originate spontaneously; the seeds or 

 "germs" must be brought in and planted. Wheat will not 

 grow on a field unless you plant the seed of wheat, nor potatoes 

 unless you plant potatoes. Sometimes cholera seems to come into 

 a herd spontaneously, but if the matter is investigated thoroughly 

 the source of the outbreak will be found in one of the several ways 

 I have already mentioned. A dirty barn won't produce it unless 

 you put the diseased germs into that barn. 



Q. How long, from the time a hog is exposed to cholera, will 

 it be before the disease develops? 



A. From 9 days up to 60 days. I have known the disease 

 to break out in some "show herds" sixty days after they got home. 



Q. How long do you keep the herd quarantined when you 

 return from the show? 



A. Fully thirty days. The disease will usually show up in 

 that time. If one of the animals should show signs of the disease, 

 put it off to itself. It may not have cholera, or it may be a very 

 mild form of the disease like sofne mild cases of typhoid (called 

 walking-typhoid). A person may carry the typhoid germs in his 

 body and spread infection to other people and still not show any 

 well marked signs of the disease himself; and in hog cholera, a 

 very mild case of the disease may pass unnoticed and give rise 

 to an outbreak sixty days and even longer after the infected animal 



