334° REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
a drooping position with the nose almost touching the ground ; but as 
a general rule the diseased animals are usually found lying down i in a 
dark and quiet corner with the nose hid in the bedding. If a fatal ter- 
mination is approaching, a very fetid diarrhea (usually one or two days 
before death) takes the place of the previous costiveness; the voice 
becomes very peculiar, grows very faint and hoarse; the sick animal 
manitests a great indifference to its surroundings, and to what is going 
on; emaciation and general debility increase very fast; the skin (es- 
pecially if the disease has been of long duration) becomes wrinkled, 
hard, dry, parchment-like, and very unclean; a cold clammy sweat 
breaks out (observed several times, once as early as forty-eight hours 
before death), and death ensues either under convulsions (comparatively 
rare), or gradually and without any struggle. A peculiar symptom, 
which, however, has been observed only once, in a litter of nine pigs, 
about a week old, at the beginning, or in the first stage of the disease, 
may here be mentioned. It consisted in a peculiar and constant twitch- 
_ ing of all voluntary muscles. All nine pigs died, and I am sorry that 
I had no opportunity to make any post mortem examination. 
In some cases numerous eruptions (ulcerous nodules) appeared on the 
tender skin on the lower surface of the body between the legs and be- 
hind the ears, and in a few cases whole pieces of skin (in one case as 
large as a man’s hand) were destroyed by the morbid process, slenghed 
off, and left behind a raw, ulcerous surface. In another case a part of 
the lower lip, of the gums, and of the lower jaw-bone had undergone 
ulecerous destruction. 
Wherever pigs or hogs had been ringed, the wounds thus made showed 
a great tendency to ulcerate. In several cases the morbid process had 
caused sufficient ulcerous destvuction to form an opening directly into 
the nasal cavities large enough to enable the animal to breathe through, 
instead of through the nostrils, which had become nearly closed by 
swelling and by exudations and morbid products adhering to their 
borders. 
In those few cases in he the disease has not a fatal termination 
the symptoms gradually disappear, coughing becomes more frequent and 
easier; the discharges from the nose, for a day or two, become copious, 
but soon diminish, “and finally cease altogether ; appetite returns, and 
becomes normal; ‘the offensive smell of the excrements disappears ; 
sores or ulcers that may happen to exist show a tendency to heal; the 
animal becomes more lively, and gains, though slowly, in flesh and 
strength; but some difficulty of breathing, and a short, somewhat hoarse, 
hacking cough remains for a long time. 
Symptoms of special eases. —Experimental pigs Nos. 5 and 6, both of the same litter, | 
and about fifteen weeks old, were fed on the sixth dey of Sepi tember with the stomach, 
cut in pieces, the cecum, and the spleen of experimenta! pig No. 2, which had died 
the same day. 
September 7,—Pig No, 5 coughs a little but eats well; pig No. 6 has a slight catarrh; 
some yevOw 2 mucus in inner canthus of one eye. 
Sepiember &.—Both pigs the same as yesterday. 
September 9.—Both pigs have very good appetite. 
September 10.—Both pigs seem to ‘be as well as possible; consume all their food 
greedily. 
Seplember 11.—Both pigs apparently healthy; neither one shows any symptoms of 
disease. 
September 12.—Both pigs evidently sick; they are tardy i in their movements; their 
ears are drooping ;, their appetite diminished. Pig No. 5 made attempts to vomit. 
September 13. —Both pigs, but especially pig No. 5, are very sick; take scarcely any 
food ; show a tendency to hide themselves in a corner; coat of hair looks rough and. 
staring; flanks are thin; accumulation of mucus in the inner canthi of the eyes. No, 
6 has discharges from the nose, especially from the right nostril, 
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