PREVENTIVE MEDICINE 221 



anthrax in a piggery is more easily traced than is the case when the 

 disease affects cattle. 



Feeding butchers' offal is the most common method by which 

 the disease is introduced, and therefore special attention needs to 

 be paid to offal containers, carts and feeding utensils. 



In one outbreak with which the author came in contact the use of 

 bedding from a farm where an anthrax carcase had been skinned 

 was the cause of the trouble. 



In the case of swine fever the disinfection is under the control 

 of the lay inspectors of the Ministry of Agriculture, the veterinary 

 inspector has nothing to do with it. It is, nevertheless, quite con- 

 ceivable that the modern enlightened pig owner may desire a more 

 expert opinion than it may be presumed the uninitiated lay inspector 

 is able to give. 



From one's knowledge of swine fever, and the means by which it 

 is spread, it is clear that the cleansing and disinfection should be 

 specially directed to those parts of the premises and to such things as 

 are most likely to have been in contact with the pigs themselves or 

 their excreta. These include the floor, lower parts of the walls, 

 food-troughs, pig crates, nets, brushes and shovels, &c., used in 

 cleaning out the pens, the boots of the attendants and any other 

 things that the practitioner thinks may have been in contact directly 

 or indirectly with infective material. It is generally considered 

 that infective manure loses its virulence in a comparatively short 

 time, so that it 'need not be destroyed or treated in any way with 

 chemicals, but infective manure taken from the piggery should be 

 buried among the hot manure in the pit. 



The average pig-keeper when he gets an outbreak of disease 

 among his animals immediately proceeds to whitewash anything and 

 everything. The most difficult thing to get him to do is to clean 

 the place first. Cleansing must precede disinfection in this case. 

 The pens should be well scraped out and the scrapings added to 

 the dung heap. 



Water should then be freely used, and the place be thoroughly 

 scrubbed out. The food-troughs should be well scrubbed and 

 scoured, and, if of the removable type, be taken outside and exposed 

 to the air and sunlight. If there is a bed-platform of wood, this 

 should be treated in the same way ; it need not be destroyed. All 

 the corners and angles in the pens and passages should be picked 

 out clean. The walls require scrubbing to a height of at least 

 six feet, but, if the piggery is particularly dirty and ill-lit, the cleans- 

 ing operations may well be extended to other parts that are not 

 necessarily splashed with manure. An outbreak of disease is 



