74 DiSEASEb OF SWINE AND OTHER ANIMALS. 



animals to be inoved are sound and out of a liealtlij" lierd. lltli. Eail- 

 road and sliii)piug agents at adjoining stations slioidd be forbidden to 

 siiip pigs, excepting under license of the local authority, until the plague 

 has been suppressed in the district. 32th. When infected pigs have 

 been sent by rail, boat, or other mode of conveyance, measm-es should 

 be takcii to insure the thorough disinfection of such cars or conveyances, 

 as well as the banks, docks, yards, and other places in or on ^vhich the 

 diseased animals may have been turned. 



Other measiu'es Avould be essential in particular localities. Thus in 

 the many places ^here the hogs are turned out as street scavengers 

 and meet from all different localities, such liberty should be put a stop 

 to whenever the disease apj;)ears in the district, and all hogs found at 

 large should be rendered liable to summary seizure and destruction. 



The great difticulty of putting in practice the means necessary to the 

 extiipation of the disease \rill be found to consist in the lack of veterinary 

 experts. jS^o one but the accomplished veterinarian can be relied on to 

 distinguish between the different communicable and destructive diseases 

 of swine, and to adopt the measures necessary to their suppression in the 

 different cases. In illustration I need only recall the numerous reports in 

 which what is supposed to be hog cholera has been found to depend on 

 lung worms^ on any one of the four different kinds of intestmal round 

 worms, on the lard-ii'orm. on emhryo fajfe-vcorms, on. malignant anilirax, 

 on finenmonia, or on erysipelas. To class all these as one and apply to 

 all the same suppressive measiu^es would be a simple waste of the pub- 

 lic money, but to distinguish them and apply the proper antidote to 

 each over a wide extent of territory would demand a number of experts 

 whom it would be no easy matter to find. Tliis state of things is the 

 natural result of a persistent neglect of veterinary sanitary science and 

 medicine as a factor in tlie national well-being, and must for a time 

 prove a heavy incubus on all concerted efforts to restrict and stamp out 

 our animal plagues. It ^dll retard success under the best devised sys- 

 tem, and will sometmies lead to losses that might have been saved, yet 

 if an earnest and prolonged effort is made the obstacle should not be an 

 insuperable one, and the United States should be purged not of this 

 plague only, l)ut of all those animal pestilences wMch at present threaten 

 our future well-being. 



Eespectfully submitted. 



JAMES LAW. 



Ithaca, ISr. y.^ January 2, 1879. 



