SWINE. 403 



Preventive measures are far better than curatives in this disease, for if a treatment could 

 be devised that would save the life of a hog having it, such an animal would prove of but 

 little value afterward, unless the attack were an exceptionally mild one, for the animal 

 would require so long a time to entirely recover from its effects, that it would in the end, as 

 a rule, be a loss to the owner. 



Preventive Measures. The best preventive measures to be adopted for this swine 

 scourge is to maintain the best possible hygienic conditions; as previously stated in the same 

 connection, carbolic acid given two or three times a day in the water for drinking has proved 

 very beneficial in many instances. A gentleman in France who is an extensive breeder of 

 swine states that this disease, known in that country as rouget, is often the occasion of great 

 loss there, but that he has escaped losses from this cause by disinfecting his piggeries, and by 

 giving in each full-grown pig s food a teaspoonful of a mixture consisting of two and one- 

 half ounces of pure carbolic acid, and one gallon of common vinegar; and also by giving 

 them occasionally a moderate dose of nitre or sulphate of soda. 



Dr. Stetson says in this connection : &quot;As nothing ever did or will exist without an ade 

 quate cause, there must be a cause for hog cholera. Now, if the cause can be effectually 

 destroyed, all danger will be avoided, and the swine grower can have reasonable security 

 that his herds will be protected. I am not prepared to say that such an infallible anti 

 dote has been discovered, but this I can say in all good conscience, that during a period 

 of fifteen years or more I have been in the constant habit of giving my hogs carbolic acid to 

 prevent this disease among my own hogs, and that thus far I have escaped beyond my most 

 sanguine expectations. I do not say that this disease has not broken out, but if so it has 

 been in so mild a form, and the losses have been so trivial, that no one but a person on the 

 constant lookout would ever have suspected disease. 



I have used the various preparations of carbolic acid, and for the past few years only the 

 crude acid, which contains not only carbolic acid, but all the other uncrystallized acids of coal 

 tar. This crude carbolic acid is of about the color and consistence of pine tar. From long 

 use I am satisfied that it has the same or equal prophylactic virtues as the crystallized acid, 

 and at a much less cost. I purchase by the gallon, and give it to my hogs in the water they 

 drink. I suppose it is possible to give it in poisonous quantities, but my experience teaches 

 me that there is little or no danger to be apprehended on that score. For more than a score 

 of years my hogs have got their water from what is known as a hog waterer. This is made 

 by connecting two barrels with gas pipe, and fed from a reservoir higher than the barrels. 

 To prevent the water overflowing in the barrel connected -with the reservoir, it is supplied with 

 a valve and float, which will control the water to a desired height. Into the barrel with the 

 float I introduce a pint or more of the crude acid as often as once a month, if 100 or more 

 hogs drink from the barrel. The water, in its passage from the fountain through the barrel 

 with the float to the barrel from which they drink, keeps their drinking water constantly 

 impregnated with the acid, and the peculiar scent of the acid is an evidence that it is not 

 exhausted. I endeavor to have this scent constantly in the drinking water, and fresh addi 

 tions are necessary to keep it up. 



In the absence of such a watering arrangement, the acid may be given in their water or 

 swill trough. If a small quantity is given each day no harm will be done, but as often as 

 once in each week is imperatively demanded. The quantity of the acid for a single hog never 

 entered into my calculations. I should think a tablespoonful, or half an ounce for ten hogs, 

 would be sufficient, and my own hogs get very much less.&quot; 



Dr. Detmers gives, as the result of his investigations, the following conclusions respecting 

 preventive measures: 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 



