552 SWINE IN AMERICA 



Up to within a recent time, knowledge of tuberculosis 

 as affecting swine has been cjuite limited, as most observa- 

 tions of the disease in animals had been in connection 

 with cattle. Its spread among hogs, has, however, been 

 so rapid that increased attention has of late been given 

 to its dangerous character and to measures of pre- 

 vention. In states, as in Wisconsin, where the pasteuriza- 

 tion of skimmed milk used for feeding is required, a very 

 extensive source of contagion is thereby removed. Pack- 

 ers ha\-e in some instances been compelled to protect 

 themselves by refusing to purchase hogs from a noto- 

 riously infected district. In many cases, however, this 

 method is regarded as drastic, and, as Doctor Salmon 

 has said, ''There are probabl but a small proportion of 

 the shippers of tubercular hogs who know that they 

 have this disease in their herds, and the evidence of the 

 fact which is discovered in the abbattoirs is never 

 brought to their attention." 



It seems probable that the combined efforts of federal 

 and state authorities, the packers and the hog raisers, 

 are essential to the control of this disease in swine, and 

 that its eradication must be conducted co-ordinately with 

 a similar movement for eradicating it from cattle. A 

 first essential to this is a realization by the owners of 

 hogs or cattle of the great danger attending the dis- 

 ease. Assuredly, no one who stops to consider that he 

 may be planting the seeds of c(Misumption in members of 

 his own family would hesitate to assist in taking decisive 

 measures! When tin's possibility is realized generally, 

 and is brought home, the solution of the problem will 

 be much nearer at hand. Even if looked at from a purely 



