156 IOWA DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE 



birth to pigs that are any better immunes than from a sow that has had 

 the simultaneous and is herself just a healthy immune — never hyper- 

 immunized. That immunity in those little pigs lasts from three to eight 

 weeks after birth. To prove that they are able to carry anti-bodies, Doctor 

 Reynolds made serum from the blood of the little pigs born of immune 

 mothers, and used it in simultaneous treatment against virus, and found 

 it would protect the hogs just the same as the serum we produced. I had 

 one report where some of these pigs from immune mothers at about the 

 right age — eight or ten weeks — ^began to take cholera. In that herd was 

 one litter that was still nursing beyond the ordinary nursing period. The 

 cholera did not touch them while they nursed the mother. Whether that 

 was due to the fact that they were getting the ideal diet, or whether the 

 mother was giving them anti-bodies in the milk, I do not know; that has 

 never been tried out. 



Doctor Reynolds has worked out another proposition. He gives an ac- 

 count of one sow, called "the old red sow," in his reports. First let me 

 tell you that he w^as working on theory — and they are now using it in 

 .-Centucky — of giving these pigs from the immune mothers a dose of vir- 

 ulent blood when they are three w^eeks old. They could stand that with- 

 out any serum and come through all right with a very small percentage of 

 loss. That would immunize them until they were quite good sized hogs 

 and had reached the age when you could hope to give them a permanent 

 immunity if you wished to use the simultaneous method on them. In using 

 his virulent blood treatment on these pigs from an immune mother, he 

 used it on the old red sow's first litter successfully; not one died. He 

 used it on her second litter, and not one died. He used it on her third 

 litter, and they all died. For some reason or other, she failed to transmit 

 any immunity to that third litter. I don't know that the doctor has ever 

 expressed an opinion as to whether she had lost her own immunity or not, 

 but he re-immunized her by giving her another simultaneous treatment, 

 and her fourth litter took the virulent blood without a bit of trouble. 



The great difficulty in maintaining an immune herd is that you can't 

 give permanent immumty to a young pig. Some of them you may im- 

 munize for life when they are forty pounds in weight, but there will be 

 some more of them subjects for cholera any time after six months. The 

 same is true of vaccination in the child. You know the changes are 

 more rapid in the young, and therefore you can't promise a permanent 

 immunity on a young, growing pig. 



Now, you know the question is up with the legislature as to what 

 they will do with this matter. The animal husbandry committee of the 

 house have three or more bills before them. They had four bills to 

 consider, and they undertook to write a committee bill, and got all 

 muddled up on it, and the whole matter is back in their committee 

 again; so they have not made any advancement. There is another bill 

 before the agricultural committee of the senate, and they are going at 

 it in a systematic way. They have sent out letters containing questions 

 upon all phases of the treatment to a list of people. I furnished a list 

 of customers who had ordered serum from us of our own production, and 

 also of the Kansas serum we have been using this fall. Senator Allen is 



