420 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OP AGRICULTURE. 



All tlie medicines, secret and otherwise, used so far — and their num- 

 ber is legion — have not done a particle of good, or, if they have, I have 

 been unable to hear of it. Usually those farmers who have used the 

 most medicine, or the greatest variety of medicines, have lost the 

 largest number of hogs, possibly because, relying upon the medicines, 

 they neglected all other sanitary measures. Good results, in somewhat 

 mitigating the morbid process and improving thereby the chances of 

 recovery, have been produced by feeding boiled, cooked, or steamed 

 food, and also by feeding animal food. The wholesome effect of the 

 former seems to be due to the fact that in cooked, boiled, or steamed 

 food, if fed as soon as cold enough, no disease-producing Schizomycetes 

 are apt to be existing, and if it is fed exclusively none are introduced 

 through the digestive canal into the animal organism. Animal food 

 has had in some cases a good effect, probably because it is rapidly 

 digested, and a rapid digestion, it seems, is not favorable to an intro- 

 duction of the disease-producing Schizomycetes into the animal organ- 

 ism by means of the digestive canal. Still, feeding animal food consti- 

 tutes by no means a sure protection, because hogs fed in slaughter- 

 houses, and hogs fed with the offal from a hotel-table (for instance, 

 those belonging to the Doane House, in Champaign, in the fall of 1878) 

 became affected and died of swine plague. 

 Very respectfully, 



Chicago, III., February 28, 1880. 



H. J. DETMEES, V. 8. 



REPORT OF DR. JAMES LAW. 

 SECOND SUPPLEMENTAL EEPORT ON SWINE FEVER. 



Hon. William G. Le Due, 



Commissioner of Agriculture : 

 Sir : At the time when I made my first supplemental report, several 

 of the experiments referred to in that paper were incomplete, while 

 others had just been started, so that it becomes necessaiy to furnish a 

 second addendum to give the final results of my observations. As the 

 simplest mode of dealing with these supplementary facts I shall refer 

 to them seriatim, beginning with those which are merely complement- 

 ary of the last report. 



INFECTION BY COHABITATION. 



In my last report an instance of this kind was furnished, and a de- 

 duction made that the disease was most virulent when at its height, in- 

 asmuch as that the exposed pig seemed to resist the contagion from an 

 animal in process of convalescence, but speedOy (in twelve days) feU a 

 victim when placed along with a pig in which the malady was actively 

 advancing. In the present report (No. 1) is given the necropsy of the 

 pig infected by such exposure. The characteristics of the disease were 

 sufficiently well marked, for though the bow^els showed little more than 

 a catarrhal inflammation, with an excessive secretion of glaiiy muciis, 

 dirty, greenish-black pigmentation and two small circular blood extrav- 

 asations, yet the other organs presented distinct swine-plague lesions. 

 Thus, there were the characteristic blotches on the skin, the petechial 



