REPORT OF THE BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 237 



as I have been able to learn there is no known specific. Some use poke-root and 

 arsenic, others lye soap on corn, both of which seem to be beneficial- sometimes and 

 of no avail at others. Live-stock, generally, is in better than average condition, 

 and no general complaint of prevalent disease save in two localities, where cattle 

 have died from what some in one neighborhood thought hydrophobia, and in the 

 other my assistant thinks symptoms indicate spinal disease; but on cutting open an 

 .animal that he himself lost he found its stomacn impacted. Some 20 head, perhaps, 

 in both places were lost. 



HARLAN. -Cholera made its first appearance among hogs in tliis county in the 

 year 186-'64. It was introduced by hogs brought in from Virginia, and has pre- 

 vailed every year since the above date, Before its introduction our hogs were 

 healthy. Nothing ever tried here has done any good towards checking the spread 

 of the disease. 



HART. From the best information I can get hog cholera appeared in this county 

 .about twenty years ago. I can give no data as to the mode of its introduction. The 

 hogs were healthy previous to that time, so far as now known. The condition of 

 tock was somewhat impaired on account of the great drought of the present year, 

 but is now in good average winter condition, with extremely favorable weather 

 for wintering well. 



HENDERSON Hog cholera made its first appearance in this county about 1853, 

 .and was sudden, without apparent cause, and very fatal. Hogs were mostly 

 healthy before that time. Stock generally is poorly cared for here. The animals 

 are allowed to range the stalk fields during the winter, and are usually without 

 shelter. 



HENRY. No hog cholera has existed in this county during the year 1887 that I 

 have heard of. Our hogs have generally been healthy. In fact, we have had no 

 disease with either horses, cattle, sheep, or hogs that could be called contagious, or 

 that prevailed to any destructive extent. Of course some of our domestic animals 

 have died, but not from any special disease. Hog cholera existed here years ago, 

 and often was very destructive. I do not know when it first made its appearance, 

 but I should think twenty-five or thirty years ago, nor do I know how it was intro- 

 duced, nor do I believe that it is always imported. I think it is the result (often) of 

 natural causes. I think our people are learning the importance of taking better 

 care of stock, and each year shows an improvement in this regard. 



HOPKINS. Hog cholera has been known in this county for a number of years, 

 but it is only at long intervals that it assumes an epidemic form. There has been 

 more of it during the past eighteen months than for a long while before. Hogs 

 were generally healthy before the introduction of the disease, but the mode of 

 introduction is unknown. Eighty per cent. , perhaps, of the hogs affected died. 

 The disease gradually " wears out" without remedial or prophylactic measures. 



JEFFERSON. Hog cholera first occurred in this county in the fall of 1859. How 

 it was introduced I am totally unable to tell, or even give a guess. Previous to 

 that time, according to " the oldest inhabitant," hogs had always been healthy. 



LAUREL. Hog cholera was first noticed in this county in the year 1869. It was 

 then very fatal, killing those in good condition while those in poor condition escaped. 

 It has occurred every three or four years since, and generally following what is 

 called a mast year, hogs living through the winter principally on mast and in the 

 early spring cholera makes its appearance. This generally lasts through the summer 

 and until the fall feeding commences, and even then requiring shifting to different 

 fields whenever the disease appears among them, and the sorting out of all seem- 

 ingly diseased animals. We have absolutely no remedy that is even generally suc- 

 cessful. For a few years we have been exempt from the disease. 



LAWRENCE. Hog cholera made its appearance in this county about the year 1855, 

 and has prevailed here and throughout the State of Kentucky ever since. In the 

 year 1860 the State legislature passed an act offering a reward of $1,000 to any 

 person who might discover the true cause of the disease and a remedy that would 

 effect a cure. Since that time the investigation has been very thorough; many 

 theories for its cause have been advanced, but none seem to be more rational in mak- 

 ing up a diagnosis than that it is a disease of the liver. But what it is that causes 

 a disorder of that organ is for the future to determine. There have been many cures 

 devised and causes alleged for the disease, but I have heard of none perfect enough 

 to secure the reward of a thousand dollars offered by the State. It is thought that if 

 something was administered to them occasionally during the prevalence of the dis- 

 ease to stimulate the liver to perfect action it would prevent the occurrence of the 

 cholera. It seems that they are not exempt from the epidemic in the pen under 

 the most liberal process of feeding, or in the field among the most profuse growth 

 of vegetation. And it further seems that by the process of evolution that the hog 

 has reached a period of time when a mysterious disease has met him, and now, 



