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On Diseases of Swine. 
Read June 13th, 1809. 
Northumberland 31st, March 1809. 
Sir, 
A friend lent me a few days ago the first volume of the 
Memoirs of the Philadelphia Society for promoting 
agriculture :—I have perused it with much pleasure ;— 
it will no doubt encourage those interested in agricul- 
tural pursuits to make the communications which the 
society invite.—Observing in the preface, that the soci- 
ety call particularly for information ‘“‘ on the diseases 
of our domestic animals,””—I cannot refrain from giving 
you an account of the diseases which within my know- 
ledge have attended an animal, that few writers have 
thought worth while to notice; but which Dr. Rush, 
in his admirable introductory Lecture, (published by 
the society,) has rescued from that state of obscurity 
and neglect under which it had so long lain dormant : 
you will readily perceive, I mean the Hoc.—I wish the 
information I am about to give may be acceptable to 
the society, but I own my chief object in writing is in 
the hope, that it may induce others to come forward, 
and supply information on a subject on which it has 
either not been fashionable to treat, or perhaps from the 
mistaken idea (to quote the words of Dr. Rush) ‘ that 
the hog like the miser, can do good only when he 
dies.” —I have generally in my pens from 100 to 250 
of those animals: they are of course subject to diseases; 
one with which I was most troubled was a disorder that 
