Cholera Suis, Hog Cholera, etc. 39 



mentary on this to say that for every kilogramme of its body 

 weight, the horse consumes daily 13,272 grammes oxygen, the 

 cow, 11,040 grammes, and the pig, 29,698 grammes. This is in 

 perfect keeping with the high normal temperature maintained by 

 the latter animal. In the interest of health the pig requires twice 

 the breathing space for every 100 lbs. of his weight that is de- 

 manded by either ox or horse. What violence is done to this 

 demand of nature in the daily treatment of the hog ! 



Fresh, sound, wholesome food is no less a desideratum. Yet the 

 omnivorous pig is condemned to become the scavenger for the 

 kitchen, the stable, the feeding pen, the slaughter house, the 

 creamery, the sugar works, the brewery and even the rendering 

 works. Whatever is considered unfit for human use is thrown 

 into a swill barrel, and as this is never emptied it becomes the 

 field of endless decompositions with the production of the most 

 varied toxins, ptomaines and enzymes. Many of these chemical 

 toxic products cause gastro-intestinal inflammation with vomiting, 

 bloody diarrhoea and tenesmus, and derangement of the nervous 

 and other functions as manifested in weakness, staggering, dnl- 

 ness, stupor, etc. Death may follow in a few hours and the cases 

 are set down as acute forms of hog cholera, rather than the simple 

 poisoning that they are. All the same they pave the way for 

 the attack of hog cholera if its germ is present even in a form of 

 little potency. All such foods should, on the contrary, be fed 

 fresh and after boiling. 



Salt in excess, the brine of salt meats or fish (containing toxins, ) 

 the powdered soaps used in kitchens and added to swill, mouldy 

 bread, cotton seed meal fed in any considerable proportion in the 

 food, and even an exclusive diet of corn (maize), must be guarded 

 against. 



The crowding of many pigs in a small yard where the}' root 

 continually in each others' droppings and their own, should be 

 avoided. Individual pens, or pens holding two or three only 

 and kept clean are to be preferred, and still more a wide grassy 

 range where they may escape from their own filth. The long 

 feeding trough should be discarded in favor of one into which 

 the pig can introduce his nose only. The nose itself will intro- 

 duce filth ferments, but, where there are not specific-plague-germs, 

 it is the quantity that tells and the exclusion of the foul feet is 



