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DISEASES OF SWINE AND OTHER ANIMALS. 321 
INVESTIGATION OF SWINE PLAGUE. 
Congress having previously appropriated the sum of $10,000 for de- 
fraying the expenses of a commission to investigate and determine the 
causes producing, and, if possible, discover remedies for, some of the 
more contagious and destructive diseases incident to domesticated ani- 
mals, early in August last the Commissioner of Agriculture appointed 
examiners in the States of New York, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, 
Missouri, and North Carolina, to conduct suchinvestigation. Still later 
in the season, on receiving information that not only diseases among 
swine were prevailing to an alarming extent in Virginia, but that a fatal 
disease resembling pleuro-pneumonia or contagious lung fever was de- 
stroying a good many valuable dairy cattle in some localities of that 
State, an additional examiner was appointed and instructed to investi- 
gate and report upon all the facts connected with the condition of both 
classes of animals in the infected districts of this State. 
In the preliminary report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for 
1877, on the subject of diseases of domesticated animals, a tabular state- 
ment gives the total value of farm animals lost in the United States 
during that year, principally from infectious and contagious diseases, at 
$16,653,428. These losses were based upon as accurate returns as could 
be obtained in the absence of an absolute census, but as they included 
data from but eleven hundred and twenty-five counties (about one-half 
the whole number of counties in the United States), the above sum 
falls far below the aggregate losses for that year. About two-thirds of 
this sum was occasioned by the loss of swine by diseases presumed to 
be of an infectious and contagious character. Notwithstanding these 
maladies had their origin near a quarter of a century ago, and had rap- 
idly spread from one.State and one county to another, there was great 
diversity of opinion as to their contagious or non-contagious character. 
Many intelligent farmers and stock-growers insisted that they were not 
transmissible from one animal to another, while perhaps equally ag 
large a number contended that the diseases were of a highly infectious 
and contagious nature. As this was regarded as one among the most 
important facts to be determined by the investigation, two of the exam- 
iners devoted most of their time to experiments looking to a solution of 
this problem. 
As the number and value of the annual losses among swine were 
much heavier than among all other classes of domesticated animals com- 
bined, the Commissioner deemed it best to devote the greater portion of 
the limited sum placed at his disposal to an investigation of the fatal 
diseases affecting this class of farm animals. 
The preliminary investigation instituted and conducted under the 
supervision of this department, in the fall and winter of 1877~78, estab- 
lished the fact that diseases prevail among these animals much more ex- 
tensively during the late summer and early fall months than at other 
seasons of the year, and for this reason the examiners selected to con- 
duct the investigation were employed for periods ranging from one to 
three months. It was assumed, and the subsequent history of the dis- 
ease proved the assumption -to be well founded, that the reduced tem- 
perature of the late fall and early winter months would cause an abate- 
ment of the disease, and in a measure deprive the examiners of subjects 
with which to continue their experiments. While, therefore, the very 
21 AGR, 
