256 Annual Report for 1914 of Royal Veterinary College. 



of outbreaks as to encourage the hope that the disease might 

 actually be stamped out, and (2) that the experience of the 

 second decade of the Board's regime has destroyed this hope, 

 or at least made it clear that the disease cannot be eradicated 

 by the measures that have been employed against it during 

 that period. The figures for the last year are specially 

 disappointing, since they show a recrudescence of the disease 

 which makes the position worse than it has been at any time 

 since 1896. 



That swine fever could have been stamped out, and that it 

 would even now be possible to stamp it out, is scarcely open to 

 doubt, but it is far from certain that pig-owners would tolerate 

 over a period of years the " cattle-plague measures " which 

 would be necessary to secure the desired result, or that the 

 cost of eradication would be justified by the ultimate saving. 



At any rate, there now appears to be nearly general agree- 

 ment that the attempt to stamp the disease out must be frankly 

 abandoned, and that the Board of Agriculture should, at least 

 in the immediate future, be content with measures designed 

 to hold the disease in check and mitigate the losses which it 

 inflicts on breeders and feeders of pigs. 



During the past year the Board of Agriculture has begun 

 to employ on a considerable scale the serum treatment, the 

 advantages and disadvantages of which were explained in the 

 previous annual report. The only points which need be here 

 repeated are that serum treatment, however extensively it might 

 be practised, could never be expected to stamp out this disease ; 

 and that if it is to be effectual in preventing the spread of the 

 disease, it must be accompanied by severe restrictions on the 

 movement of the animals subjected to the treatment. It 

 appears to be doubtful whether owners have realised that the 

 treatment of outbreaks by the free use of serum is not a 

 substitute for restrictions on movement of suspected pigs, but 

 an alternative to slaughter with compensation. It can scarcely 

 be questioned that the latter plan of dealing with outbreaks is 

 in general the more satisfactory from the owner's point of 

 view, but from the point of view of the State it is not a 

 method that can be justified except when eradication of the 

 disease is the object aimed at. It might almost be said that the 

 measures enforced against swine fever during the last twenty 

 years have been equivalent to a system of insurance, under 

 which owners are paid a large part of the losses which are 

 caused by swine fever, while the State pays the whole of the 

 premium. 



It is not certain that the new method of dealing with 

 outbreaks, involving as it does the withholding of compensa- 

 tion, will in the end prove more acceptable to the owner than 



