410 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
tion to the pigs may succeed in conveying the malady to distant herds. The rat is ‘ : 
at once suggested to the mind as being almost ubiquitous in piggeries, as feeding in — 
common with the swine, as liable to be devoured by the hog when sick or dead, as 
given to wandering from place to place, and as possessed of a vicious habit of gnaw- 
ng the feet and other parts of his porcine companion, and thus unconsciously inocu- 
ating him. ; 
I haw up tothe present time had the opportunity of inoculating but one rat with the 
hog-poison. Unfortunately my subject died on the second day thereafter, the body 
showing some suspicious lesions, namely, congested lungs with considerable inter- — 
lobular exudation, congested small intestines, dried-up contents of the large intes- 
tines, and sanguinous discoloration of the tail from the seat of inoculation to the tip. 
INOCULATIONS FROM THE RAT. 
With the fresh congested small intestine of the rat I inoculated one pig, and with 
the frozen intestine one day later I inoculated a second. The first had no appreciable 
rise of temperature, loss of appetite, nor digestive disorder, but on the sixth day pink 
and violet eruptions, the size of a pin’s head and upward, appeared on teats and belly, 
and on the tenth day there was a manifest enlargement of the inguinal glands. From 
what I had seen of the occult forms of the disease I was led to the opinion that this 
was one of them. Unfortunately, I had at the time no healthy pig available for the 
crucial testi of reinoculation. 
In the second pig, inoculated with the frozen intestine, the symptoms were too . 
obscure to be of any real value. As soon as I obtain a supply of rats I propose to sub- 
ject this question to a further investigation. 
SUCCESSFUL INOCULATION OF SHEEP, 
Less significant than the infection of rats, yet of immense practical importance, is 
the susceptibility of sheep to the hog-fever. I have experimented on two sheep of — 
different ages, an adult merino wether and a cross-breed lamb, and in both cases hav 
succeeded in transmitting the disease. ; 
INFECTION OF THE MERINO. 
This sheep was inoculated by hypodermic injections of one and a half drachms of 
blood from a pig just killed. On the fourth day he had elevated temperature, and on 
the sixth scouring and snuffling breathing, but the symptoms rapidly subsided. -On 
the fourteenth day he had an injection of two drachms more of blood from a sick pig, 
and on the twenty-first day of one drachm of blood and pleural fluid containing mul- 
titudes of bacteria. Next day the temperature was raised and the snufiling breathing 
reappeared, both symptoms continuing for some time. On the sixth day his blood 
was found to contain moving bacteria similar to those present in the injected blood. 
On the twenty-third day from the last inoculation he was reinoculated, this time with 
the scurf from the ear of a sick pig. This was followed by no rise of temperature, but 
there existed much irritation of the bowels with redness and swelling of the anus, 
occasional diarrhea, and the passage of an excess of mucus, sometimes stained with 
blood. Seventeen days after the last inoculation he had another hypodermic injection 
of one drachm of blood and pleural flnid from a pig just killed. As before, this led to 
2u extensive rise of temperature while the intestinal catarrh continued. 
INFECTION OF THE LAMB, 
The lamb was first injected with a saline solution of the scurf and cutaneous exuda- 
tion from the ear of a sick pig. There followed a slight rise of temperature, a scurfy 
eruption onthe ears and oozing of blood from different points on their surface, so as to 
form dark red scales. 
On the sixth day following it was reinoculated by the hypodermic injection of one 
drachm of pleural fluid from a pig just killed, the fluid containing an abundance of 
moving bacteria. \Next day there was extreme rise of temperature, some dullness and 
swelling in the right axilla, but appetite and rumination were not altogether lost nor 
suspended. On the ifth day there was tenderness and unusual contraction of the 
rectum with the passage of bloody mucus, and on the eighth day profuse diarrhea 
with the passage of muth mucus. 
SUCCESSFUL INOCULATION OF A PIG FROM THE SICK SHEEP. 
A healthy pig was inoculated with mucus from the anus of the wether, and showed 
a slight elevation of temperature for five days, but without any other marked symp- 
