FOURTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK—I'ART VI. ^>2r, 



If you use the simultaneous treatmeut, 1 would treat all the 

 hogs. Offspring from immune parents have more immunity at 

 birth, but they gradually lose that immunity, until when they 



are three months old they have practically lost most of it. It 

 does not seem to make much difference whether the male is im- 

 mune or not. If the sow is immune, your pigs will have quite a 

 little immunity to start with, and stand considerable exposure. 



Q. Does this treatment set up a mild form of cholera? 



Dr. Xiles: Not that you can detect. If you were to take the tem- 

 perature with a thermometer, you would find that they have a little 

 reaction. 



I was going to tell you this morning a little about the government 

 experiments this year. As most of you are aware, the last session of con- 

 gress, in making the agricultural appropriation, specified that the sum 

 of $75,000 should be used in making some demonstrations as to whether 

 hog cholera might be controlled or not. The Secretary of Agriculture 

 decided that this work had better be divided among several states, so that 

 one county was selected in Iowa (Dallas county), one county in 

 Indiana, and one county in Missouri. So that during the present 

 season — since July 1st — the Bureau of Animal Industry has been con- 

 ducting some experiments in those two counties. Our object was to 

 lessen the number of outbreaks occurring in those counties during the 

 present year as much as possible. We had hoped, if we had started early 

 in the spring, to keep hog cholera out of those counties but the appro- 

 priation was not made available until July 1st; consequently the work 

 in these counties could not begin until then. The manufacture of serum 

 for this county work also could not be actively carried on until July 1st, 

 when the money became available. When we began work in these three 

 counties we found that hog cholera was quite widespread. We had hoped 

 that it would not become very widespread before we were able to begin 

 work. Our plan of work was to use the serum treatment largely. This 

 work was undertaken in co-operation with the Iowa State College, and 

 the state veterinary department of your state, in Iowa. Our object was 

 to ascertain as quickly as we could where cholera was in Dallas county, 

 as to the number of hogs in the county, and the number of hogs raised 

 the year before, and also in regard to the losses in previous years. Not 

 being able to begin work before July 1st, it took a long time to get the 

 work well started, and by that time the disease was pretty widespread, 

 so that we have not been able to do more in this county this year than 

 to treat a large number of animals. We have been able to save the farm- 

 ers very great loss. Something like ten or eleven thousand head of hogs 

 have been treated in Dallas county, a similar number in Indiana, and a 

 somewhat smaller number in Missouri. By the treatment of those ten 

 or eleven thousand head of hogs in Dallas county, we have shown that 

 the use of serum alone in a badly diseased herd will save practically all 

 the animals in the herd that are not already infected at the time of 



