134 



those of the second class of ovxr first division, to prevent the poison from contact 

 with the animal. About these we have fully spoken heretofore. The most ef- 

 fectual one is " the cordon^ strengthened by the most rigid measures to render 

 it effectual. 



III. THE HOG CHOLERA AND TRICHINIS. 



The rinderpest is not more fatal to the ox than these diseases are to the hog. 

 Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been lost to this country by the hog 

 cholera — as it is most generally called but by some, the hog erysipelas. No leg- 

 islation has been had to prevent the driving through healthy districts droves of 

 hogs which have the cholera, and thus the disease has been spread over nearly 

 the entire United States. 



It is caused by an animal poison ; but whether, like the small-pox and cattle 

 plague, inhaled into the blood, or, like that of human cholera, swallowed into the 

 digestive canal, is not satisfactorily determined. But from the rapidity of its 

 action, and the freedom from eruptions on the skin, it is, perhaps, more a dis- 

 ease of the intestinal canal than of the blood. It presents, however, many 

 characteristics of the erysipelas. 



1. Symptoms. — The hog is noticed to eat less eagerly, to stop and go to a 

 branch or other place where it can get water ; to drink eagerly, then to com- 

 mence vomiting, which continues and is followed by severe purging. Death 

 usually occurs in a day or two. 



2. The remedy and preventive. — No certain remedy is yet known ; but such as 

 affords some promise, we mention. 



We take from the Louisville Industrial and Commercial Gazette the follow- 

 ing : 



" Cure for the hog cholera. — Take ten grains of calomel, ten grains of copperas, 

 and ten drops of turpentine. Give it in slop ; or if the hog will not eat the slop, 

 drench him. 



"This remedy has been used with great success. Farmers who used it as a 

 preventive have never lost any hogs by cholera, and it is a certain cure if the 

 animal is able to swallow it." 



Although we have no other knowledge of this remedy than the statement of 

 the Gazette, yet our own experience in the use of copperas encourages us to 

 hope much for it. 



At one time our farm was surrounded with this disease, and all our neighbors 

 lost their hogs — one of them more than a hundred head. These had access 

 to our own, there being nothing but the rail-fence separating them. We had 

 about 60 head, and not one of them had the disease, and it never was on the 

 farm. The hog is subject to two evils, lice and intestinal worms, both of which 

 are very unfavorable to his thrift. We salted the hogs twice a week with a 

 mixture composed of three parts of salt, two of pulverized brimstone, and one 

 of copperas, or nearly in that proportion, commencing with smaller portions of 

 the last two, and increasing them as the hog would take them. The good 

 effect of this " combination" was seen in freedom from lice, and, when butch- 

 ered, from intestinal worms. We have always believed that the copperas acted 



