190 EEPOET OF THE BUKEAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



and fatal disease known as the hog cholera. In the southeast part of the town it 

 prevails in a greater or less extent upon nearly every farm. 



In most cases the disease is traced to Western hogs that have been sold by the 

 drivers the present season, and which seem to have communicated the contagion 

 to the other inmates of the sties in which they have been kept. It is known that of 

 many droves of Western shoats that have been sold at Brighton this season, and 

 peddled about the State, nearly all have died. The disease has, no doubt, prevailed 

 extensively in other parts of the country, of which I have seen no notice. In this 

 section of the country it has been extremely fatal. Over portions of Dearborn 

 County it spread from farm to farm, and some of our farmers lost from 70 to 80 out 

 of 100 of their hogs. At the distilleries the mortality has been very severe. I re- 

 ceived information that more than 11,000 died at the distillery in New Richmond 

 in the summer and fall of 185C. The owners of the distillery at Aurora inform me 

 that they have lost between 6,000 and 7,000. A gentleman informs me that he lost 

 in 1856, at Ingraham's distillery in Cincinnati, from the 1st of August up to the 24th 

 of October ; 1,285, losing 1,152 out of a lot of 2,408. Another gentleman informs 

 me that at the distillery in Petersburgh, Ky. , he lost from the 1st of June up to the 

 18th of October, 1856, 2,576. I have also received information from several other 

 distilleries where the losses were large.* 



According to Dr. Button, this disease first appeared in Dearborn 

 County, Ind., in July, 1850. 

 Dr. E. M. Snow writes that 



During the last five years this disease has been seen, from time to time, in por- 

 tions of the more eastern States, some lines, as in western New York in 1856, prov- 

 ing quite severe and fatal, in comparatively limited localities. But in the Eastern 

 States it has, to a great extent, originated with and has generally been confined to 

 hogs imported from the West. I think that in no State east of Ohio has the disease 

 prevailed extensively or attained the character of a wide-spread epidemic. 



In the vicinity of Providence, R. L, it has prevailed to some extent, more particu- 

 larly among large herds of swine during each of the last five winters, but has been 

 mostly confined to hogs 'brought from the West, and has usually disappeared with 

 the approach of warm weather. During the last winter it was more severe than in 

 any preceding, and was not confined to Western hogs. Neither did the disease, 

 as heretofore, cease with cold weather, but it continued until August, having de- 

 stroyed more than 500 hogs in Providence and in the adjoining towns during the 

 first seven months of the present year, 1861. I have also heard of its prevalence in 

 various towns in Massachusetts during the same period, f 



The losses from hog cholera in the United States have been enor- 

 mous. Estimates have from time to time been made from carefully 

 compiled data, and these have, so far as the writer is aware, never 

 been less than $10,000,000, and have reached $25,000,000 annually. 

 The inclusion of losses from other diseases is, however, unavoidable in 

 such estimates, and consequently some allowance must be made for 

 these. The recent identification of an epizootic pneumonia of hogs 

 by the Bureau of Animal Industry, a disease which appears to be 

 identical with the Scliweineseuche of German writers, shows that the 

 varieties of swine diseases in this country are more numerous than 

 has been supposed. The erysipelas of Europe (French rouget; Ger- 

 man, RotMauf) and charboii have not yet been identified as occur- 

 ring in an epizootic or enzootic form among swine in the United 

 States, but the existence of these diseases is not impossible, as the 

 investigations have not yet been sufficiently numerous to reveal the 

 nature of all such outbreaks. The diagnosis of such diseases has 

 been very uncertain in the past, because the symptoms were not 



* George Sutton, M. D. Observations on the supposed relations between epizootics 

 and epidemics, and experimental researches to ascertain the nature of the recent 

 epizootic among the swine, and the effects which diseased meat may have on human 

 health. The North American Medieo-Chirurgical Review, May, 1858, pp. 483-504. 

 f Edwin M. Snow, M. D. Hog Cholera. Annual Report U, S Department of Ag- 

 riculture, 1861. p. 147. 



