172 



owner agreeing- to abide by all instructions as to care, treatment 

 and segregation, the Board furnishing the vaccine required. 



On Monday, ]\lay 11th, while visiting the same place and while 

 making a post-mortem examination of a recently dead hog, the 

 writer was informed by Mr. P. P'ond's ranch superintendent that 

 a number of hogs had died at Mr. Pond's hog farm near Leile- 

 hua, showing the same symptoms, that is, ulcers in the intestines, 

 as those exhibited in the hog then being examined. Consequently 

 a visit was made to JNIr. Pond's farm the following day, where it 

 was learned that acute, virulent hog cholera had prevailed for 

 ten or eleven days, making its first appearance on May 1st, or 

 the day following my last visit to that place. No satisfactory 

 reason for not notifying this office of the existing conditions 

 could be obtained as little as Mr. Bellina could give any reason 

 for his failure to report the outbreak on his place. It must 

 therefore be considered a most remarkable coincidence that so 

 virulent and fatal a disease should make its appearance simul- 

 taneously on two hog farms, forty miles apart, with no similar 

 disease existing in the Territory and no hogs having been intro- 

 duced from the mainland since ^larch 15th, or nearly seven weeks 

 before. 



As already stated the serum treatment was undertaken imme- 

 diately and with very good success in both of the infected herd.s. 

 While a number of hogs were lost before the disease was under 

 control the total loss aggregates but a fraction of what it would 

 have been except for the serum treatment, and this fraction would 

 undoubtedly have been still smaller had a sufficient tjuantity of 

 serum been on hand to treat all the animals at once. The serum 

 however is expensive, while its curative value diminishes with 

 time; ncjr is it returnable to the manufacturers, h'or these rea- 

 sons the local druggists cannot afford to keep it on hand in large 

 quantities, but must rely on the cable for sui)i)lies beyond a rea- 

 sonable amount, unless guaranteed by the hog owners. 



The curative as well as preventive properties of this treatment 

 are, however, well illustrated by the fact that at the iirescnt 

 writing, that is seven to eight weeks after the fust outbreak oi 

 the disease, all of the hogs which were injected before the dis- 

 ease had advanced beyond the fatal ])oint and many of which 

 were very sick at the time of treatment arc now doing well and 

 gaining flesh rapidly ; still more remarkable, however, is the fact 

 tliat the disease did not gain access to any other piggeries or hog 

 farms, but was kept confnu'd to the two original I'arnis, wliicli of 

 course were declared in ([uarantine immcdiatel\- allrr the diagno- 

 sis was made. T'ut as bf)th owners failed to report the api)ear- 

 ancc of the disease ])rom])tly there was e\ery opportunity for 

 the infection to become wiiltspread before a f|uarantine was cstab- 

 lishefl. and what with dogs, horses, swill wagons, trucks and the 

 shoes of laborers, drivers and visitors, it is as stated verv remark- 



