102 DISEASES OF SWINE AND OTHER ANIMALS. 



torn of illnos.s. Eleven days later it vras reiDoculatcfl with scab from the ear of the 

 lamb, and again -thvoo. days later with anal nnicus from the sheep. The day before 

 this last inoculation it was noted that the inguijial glands were much enlarged, and 

 six daya after the temperature was elevated, aud iiurple spots appeared on the belly. 

 Tins fever temperature has lasted but a few days up to the present lime, but, taken 

 nloiig -wiih the violent rash aud the enlarged lymi)hatic glands, it furnishes satis- 

 factory evidence of the diseas*?. Wo can therefore allirm of the sheep as of the rabbit 

 that not only ia it subject to this disease, but that it can multiply the poison in its sys- 

 tem aud transmit it back to the pig. 



Two other pigs have been inoculated from the lamb, but during the few days that 

 have elapsed they have shown no outward symptoms. 



IIN'SUCCESSFUL INOCULATION OF A PUPPY. 



A drachm of blood and pleural fluid containing bacteria, from a ])ig just dead, was 

 injected hypodermically on the side of a Newfoundland puppy. Next day she was 

 very dull aud careless of food, while her temperature was abnormally high. The third 

 day the heat of the body was natural, and a iair amount of liveliness had returned. A 

 few days later a large abscess appeared on the seat of inocul.ation, discharged and 

 healed, and from this time the health seemed to be re-estaJ^lished. 



SIGNIFICANCE OP THE INFECTION OF KODENTS AND SHEEP. 



Many will, no doxibt, be startled at the above developments, and inquire, half incred- 

 ulously. How is it that tlie susceptibility of these animals to this affection has never 

 been noticed before? It may even be guspected that we have been mistaken as to 

 the identity of the disease, and that we may be dealing with the vmlir/nant anthrax 

 (blood)/ murrain) rather than the specific fever of swine. "But a slight .attention to the 

 jjhenomena and post-mortem lesions of our cases will speedily dispel the doubt. Malig- 

 nant anthrax is more fatal to sheep and rabbits than to the other domestic animats, 

 whereas in my sheep the disease was so mild that its very existence woiild almost cer- 

 taiuly have been overlooked in the ordinary management of a flock, and it was only 

 detected in these cases l)y the careful thermomctrie and other observations made day 

 by day on the inoculated animals. In the rabbit the disease was more severe, and 

 would undoubtedly have proved fatal if left to itself, yet even in this animal there 

 was no indication of the rapid course and speedy destruction which characterize the 

 malignant anthrax. Again, although in both diseases alike, the lymphatic gLands are 

 the seat oi" morbid enlargement, yet tbe increase and engorgement of the spleen which 

 are so constant and so characteristic in malignant anthrax Avere altogether absent in 

 my pigs infected from the rabbit. Moreover the disease in the pigs ran the usual 

 coujparatively slow course of the pig-fever, rather than the speedily fatal one of the 

 anthrax affection. In the inoculated pigs, too, the combined lesions of the skin, 

 lungs, liowels, and lymphatic glands are unquestionably those of the swine-plague, 

 and not those of malignant anthrax. 



It is not surprising that the disease should have been hitherto nnrecognized in the 

 sheep and rabbit. The most obvious symptoms in jiigs — the pink, purple, violet, or 

 black spots and patches of the skin — were never observed in these animals, imless we 

 can consider the eruption on the cars of the lamb as of this nature. In the sheep, to 

 which .alone much attention would be paid, the constitutional distui-bance was so 

 slight as to be easily overlooked, the appetite even, and rumination scarcely suffering 

 for a day. 



Again, the failure to recognize the identity of a disease in two different gener.a of 

 anunals is familiar to all who have made .a study of com^jarative pathology. Oow-jjox 

 and liorse-pox have existed in all historic ages, but it remained for the immoi'tal 

 .Tenner to recognize and show their identity in the last ccntmy. Malignant anthrax 

 has prevailed from the time of Moses, yet in all the older veterinary works ^s'c find its 

 different forms described as independent diseases — hlain, quarter evil, putrid gore throat, 

 &c. Even to the present day many cases of this disease occurring in the human sub- 

 ject (malignant pustule) are mistaken for erysipelas (black erysipelas). Glanders in 

 horses seeins to have been known to Aristotle, and was familiar to the .ancient Greek 

 Zooiatres and l?oman Veterinarii, but its identity with the same disease in man was 

 only Bhown in 1810 by Waldinger, of Vienna. Asiatic dtolera has prevailed in the East 

 from time immemorial, but it is only in the jiresent century that its identity with 

 cholera in animals has been shown by Indi.an and European observers. 



It is no v.'onder, therefore, that fho mildness of the hog-fever in the sheep should 

 have masked its inm nature, and that the universal disregard of the disease of the 

 sniaill rodents s'lonld have led us to ignore it in these as well. Now, however, tliat 

 the truth is forced npon ns, we must recognize it in .all further attempts to arrest the 

 course of the disease or to exterminate it. The destruction and burial of infected 

 pigs, and the disinfection of {ho premises where they have been, can no longer be con- 

 sidered a sufficient safeguard. The extermination of rabbits, wild aud fame, oi 

 Guinea-pigs, of mice, and jn-obably also of r.at3, within the infected area, will bo 

 equally essential. Sheep niuat bo rigidly excluded from the hog inclosiu-es, and it 



