es Dan 
350 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
with the dung and the urine of dead pig No. 5 and diseased pig No. 6. 
Further, both pigs (B and No. 6) tramped through the exerements and 
soiled their feet, and, as pigs will do, went with their dirty feet into the 
trough which contained the waterfor drinking. Soitis but fair to suppose 
that pig B contracted the disease, not by inhaling the contagion, but by 
consuming the same with its food and water for drinking. HenceI have 
come to the conclusion that swine-plague is probably not communieated 
through the lungs by an inhalation of the atmosphere surrounding the 
diseased animals or by simple contact, but that, in order to effect a com- 
munication of the disease, the contagion or infectious principle must be 
introduced directly into a wound within the reach of the veins and lym- 
phaties, or be taken up by the digestive apparatus. This conclusion of 
mine has been corroborated by severdl facts, some of whieh I had an 
opportunity to observe myself, and some of which have been related to 
me by reliable persons. To mention afew will suffice: Mr. Henry Yothy, 
who lives four miles north of Urbana, informed me that his neighbor, 
Mr. Stickgrath, who lives only one hundred yards south of him, lost . 
every hog but one on his place; that he, Yothy, had nineteen head of 
swine shut up in a yard, and has not lost a single animal, notwithstand- 
ing Stickgrath’s diseased animals have been running at large, have 
tramped all around Yothy’s pens, and come every day close to the 
fence; but that his, Yothy’s, hogs have no lesions or wounds whatever, 
and having remained separated from Stickgrath’s hogs by a fence, had 
no opportunity to consume food or water soiled with the excrements or 
urine of the latter, and to become infected i: that way. 
Mr. L. Harris, afew miles north of Champaign, kept his shoats and pigs 
separate from his older hogs. Among the former, swine plague made its 
appearance, and proved to be very fatal.. They were kept in a yard 
west of the house, and had access to a pasture to the west and an orchard 
to the south. The peculiar, offensive smell emanating from that yard 
was so marked that I perceived it several times very plainly when pass- 
ing by, at a distance of half a mile or more, so it is to be supposed that 
considerable contagion must have been floating in the air. The yard in 
which Mr. Harris kept his old hogs (they were intended to be fattened 
and were not allowed to run out intoa pasture) was not over fifty yards 
south or southeast of the yard occupied by the diseased and dying shoats 
and pigs, consequently the wind, usually in the south, carried the efflu- 
via and the foul atmosphere of the former almost constantly into the 
yard occupied by the old hogs. The latter, notwithstanding, remained 
exempted. It may yet be stated that the old hogs were fed exclusively 
with corn, and received nothing but well-water for drinking. On the other 
hand, I have not been able to learn of any herd remaining exempted 
after the disease had once made its appearance in the immediate neigh- 
borhcood, unless the animals constituting the herd were free from any ex- 
ternal lesions, were watered from a well, fed with clean food, and shut up 
during the night and in the morning till the dew had disappeared from 
the grass, either ina bare yard not containing any old straw-stacks, or in 
sties or pens. Animals allowed to run outon a pasture or on grass, clover, 
or stubble fields at all times of the day, and animais that had external 
sores or wounds, contracted the disease sooner or later in every instance 
where the plague made its appearance in the neighborhood. Further, 
the plague, at least during the summer or while south wind was preyail- 
ing, seemed to have a special tendency to spread from south to north. H 
the history of swine-plague is inquired into it will probably be found 
that that tendency has been prevailing every year. This year, for 
instance, the disease made its appearance, as I have been informed, for 
