416 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



the pulmonal exudation, &c., and are usually found in tlie fresh blood 

 taken from a vein or artery and examined immediately, only in their 

 globular form. As I stated in my first report, and recent observations 

 have confirmed it, the globular Schizomycetes undergo changes, develop, 

 and, at a certain stage of their development or growth, form clusters or 

 colonies {zoogloea-msiSSQS or coccoglia) ; these clusters, it seems, are 

 formed principally in the smaller, narrower vessels, get stuck in the finer 

 or finest capillaries, and obstruct them ; then these zoogloea masses di- 

 vide, or parts are torn off by the pressure of the blood-current, are car- 

 ried a little farther, and cause new obstructions, or form emboli, a proc- 

 ess which, it appears to me, causes most if not all the morbid changes. 

 At any rate, in such embolic hearths, not only in the lungs, but in other 

 tissues just as well, whole nests of paitially developed (globular, double, 

 and rod-shaped) Schizomycetes can be found. It is therefore but nat- 

 ural that the circulating blood contains comparatively (not positively) 

 few Schizomycetes, because the latter are carried into, get stuck, 

 congregate, and accumulate gradually in the capillaries already ob- 

 structed by the viscous clusters. Besides, in the emboli in the affected 

 tissues, the Schizomycetes can always be found in great abundance in 

 the lymphatic glands, in the kidneys, in the extra vasated blood, and in 

 the ulcerous tumors ; in the kidneys, probably, because through those 

 organs a great many Schizomycetes are eliminated. They are also thrown 

 off or discharged through the intestines, the lungs, and the skin, and, 

 perhaps, through the salivary glands and the mucous membrane, but 

 that I do not know. 



Most of the German investigators claim for the disease-producing 

 Schizomycetes the same principle as the ijutrefaction and ferment-bac- 

 teria, that is, chemically acting or poisonous properties. Whether the 

 swine-plague Schizomycetes act also as a poisonous substance, and 

 not simply in a mechanical way, I do not know, because I have no proof 

 of their chemical action, but that the many millions or billions existing 

 in one diseased animal are able, notwithstanding their minuteness, to 

 produce important changes by robbing the animal organism of nutritive 

 material, and by depriving it of large quantities of oxygen, directly as 

 well as indirectly, is very evident. 



One other question may be asked. Where do the swine-plague Schiz- 

 omycetes come from ? This question cannot be satisfactorily answered. 

 Only one thing is certain, they immigrate or enter from the outside, and 

 are not developed, as has been claimed by several authors, under the 

 influence of the disease from germs pre-existing in the normal blood. 

 Whei'ever swine-plague Scliizomycetes do not find an entrance^ there no 

 swine plague ivill appear. 



RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS. 



These are in perfect harmony with those obtained in the fall of 1878, 

 and in the winter and spring of 1879, and may be briefly stated as follows : 



1. The most effective means of prevention that can be applied by the 

 individual owners of swine consists, first, in promptly destroying and 

 burying sufficiently deep and out of the way the first animal or animals 

 that show symptoms of swine plague, if the disease is just making its 

 appearance, and in disinfecting the pi^emises, or, if that is difficult, in 

 removing the herd at once to a non infected place, or out of the reach of 

 the infectious princii)le. If possible the herd should be taken to a piece 

 of high and dry ground, free from any straw and rubbish — if recently 

 plowed, sti41 better — and should there receive clean food and no water 



