432. REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
disclose. We must say that in this matter we were not influenced by 
a strict regard to the observance of a high-toned professional code of 
medical ethics, but entirely from a sense of the proper discharge of a 
public duty. The sick herd of Mr. Quinn, previously alluded to, was 
taken as one offering a fair opportunity for treatment. The sick animals 
were all in the formative stage of the disease, and surrounding cireum- 
stances seemed favorable to their cure. They were confined to proper 
limits, in a pen well situated as to health and comfort, and were given 
a dose of purgative medicine as a starting point, consisting of Glauber 
salts. It was observed by all with whom we conversed that a larger per 
cent. of recoveries occurred from among those animals that at the com 
mencement of the disease had vomiting and diarrhea than from others 
The dry and hard condition of the fecal matter found in the animals dis- 
sected leads to the belief that purgatives at the commencement of disease 
would always be a judicious course. Bromide of ammonia was then 
given in solution in doses of 30 grains every six hours. This remedy we 
tested at the suggestion of the Agricultural Department, at the instance 
of a gentleman who insisted that inasmuch as it exerted 1 salutary effect 
in the disease of cholera as affecting the human subject, it might prove 
equally beneficial in such disease in swine. So it might, but we did not 
find that an analogous disease, and therefore the remedy having no 
properties calculated to meet the character of the disease that we did 
jind, proved of no practical benefit in its treatment, the animals dying 
in about the same proportion as when not subjected to any plan of treat- 
ment, but left entirely to themselves. Mr. Stadda’s herd, in the same 
county, was subjected to the same plan of treatment with the same re- 
sults. The herd of Mr. Thomas, in Harrison county, was treated under 
our direction by giving a mild purgative at the commencement of the 
disease, and during the acute inflammatory state of the complaint ad- 
ministered antimonials as a sedative to the circulation, and in the see- 
ond stage tonics and nutritious food of milk, mill-feed, and vegetables, 
but the per cent. of deaths remained much the same as when not treated. 
Other isolated cases oceurred under circumstances where extra care and - 
effort was made in trying to effect a cure by several different lines of 
treatment, but candor compels the admission that as far as relates to the 
discovery of any plan of treatment proving sufficiently efficient to enti- 
tle it to respectable consideration, our efforts were without good results, 
And, lest our speculations and theories as to the proper line of treatment 
may be wrong, and present further obstacles in the way of the discovery 
of a successful remedy, we will refrain from giving them, preferring tc 
present such points only as we fully believe will be of practical value. 
I remain, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
D. W. VOYLES, M.D. 
New ALBAny, Inp., November 23, 1878. 
REPORT OF D. E. SALMON, V. 8. 
Hon. WILLIAM G. LE DUC, 
Commissioner of Agriculture: 
Str: In my investigations of the contagious hog-fever as it exists in 
North Carolina, it has been my endeavor to decide those points which 
it was indispensable for me to know before adopting preventive meas- 
ures, rather than others which might be equally interesting from a scien- 
tific standpoint. What is the percentage of loss from swine disease In 
