212 HOG CHOLERA 



taking temperatures, intending to administer se- 

 rum only to those that showed readings below 104 

 F. After numerous trials in which we found but 

 a negligible number of readings below 106 F., we 

 gave up the attempt and returned home. Later 

 we were informed from reliable sources that imme- 

 diately on our departure about seventy-five hogs 

 from the herd were shipped to market and that the 

 majority of them passed federal inspection. 1 The 

 man in this instance received more for the hogs 

 than he would have received had he administered 

 serum to all of them as an eleventh-hour mea- 

 sure, but he received infinitely less than would 

 have fallen to his lot had he treated the herd with 

 protective serum at the time when he was first 

 warned of the danger. 



In those instances in which the practicing veter- 

 inarian is called to inspect hogs that are being 

 slaughtered from cholera-infected herds, the fed- 

 eral meat inspection regulations 2 should be se- 

 lected as a convenient guide, but unless it is so 

 specified by state law, they are not to be regarded 

 as inflexible or final. The practitioner must 



* This must not be construed as a criticism of the administration 

 of the federal meat inspection regulations. It is merely a rather 

 striking example of the fact that the regulations, admirably 

 formulated and enforced to protect human health and human life, 

 cannot be relied on to eliminate from our markets swine carcasses 

 that contain hog cholera virus. 



a The paragraphs that relate to hog cholera appear near the 

 beginning of this chapter. 



