THIRTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART XI 577 



The temperature of a hog varies much and one should be guided by 

 the condition under which the temperatures are taken. In warm weather 

 the temperature may run up to 105 and yet the hog be in normal and 

 healthy condition, and also if they are subjected to considerable exer- 

 cise the temperature will rise to what would seem abnormally high, 

 therefore the temperatures under these conditions should not be con- 

 founded with a diseased condition that you find in cholera. Whenever it 

 is possible the hog should be confined in close quarters and the tem- 

 perature taken standing. Where you catch each pig and lay them down 

 to take the temperature it causes considerable excitement which with 

 the exercise it would cause while catching them, would without a doubt 

 raise the temperature. It is well to use a thermometer with a good 

 size bulb when after being well vaselined it would be easily used without 

 causing an irritation of the mucous membrane of the rectum. 



One of the most important things to find out in vaccinating a dis- 

 eased herd, is to be sure that the existing disease really is cholera. 

 That can usually be done by holding post mortem, but in some cases one 

 or two post mortems may not reveal cholera lesions. In this case you 

 must guard yourself in giving your prognosis, for anti-hog cholera 

 serum will not prevent any other disease than cholera. In simultaneous 

 vaccination you usually get m-ore or less reaction, pigs thus treated 

 may be able to transmit the disease to susceptible or non-immune hogs, 

 and in this way it may spread the infection or start new centers of in- 

 fection. So it is a question as to whether it is advisable to use this 

 method or not. In seasons when cholera is prevalent and especially 

 if the disease has broken out in your immediate neighborhood, then 

 the question of starting new infectious centers is not so important. 



Cleanliness throughout the whole operation is very essential in ad- 

 ministering serum to reduce the danger of septicema and abcess forma- 

 tion. Your syringe should be taken 'apart, your needles and vessels for 

 using serum should be sterilized by being boiled in water. If you are 

 using a syringe with a rubber plunger, the plunger should be dis- 

 infected with a five per cent solution of phenol or some disinfectant 

 that will not deteriorate the rubber. The operator's hands should be 

 well cleaned and kept clean throughout the entire operation. He should 

 not attempt to catch any pigs or touch anything with his hands ex- 

 cept the syringe. There should be plenty of assistants to do this part 

 of the work. The operator should have plenty of clean warm water 

 at hand. He should have two men to catch the hogs, one man to wash 

 and disinfect the skin at the point of injection, and he should have 

 two glass vessels with metallic covers to prevent the wind from blow- 

 ing dust and dirt into them. The syringe best adapted for vaccina- 

 tion is a twenty or thirty c. c. with a glass barrel, and it should be tested 

 with warm water before being used to see that it is in good working 

 order, twenty c. c. of serum is about all that should be injected into 

 one place, and I think it might be better to only inject ten c. c. in one 

 place, by partly withdrawing the needle and inserting in another di- 

 rection. This way you would not need to make but one puncture lessen- 



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