DISEASES OF SWINE AND - OTHER ANIMALS. 



125 



a considerable extent among people; Still farther east is a strip of 

 sandy and swampy country, extremely malarious, and very subject to 

 intermittent fever and other diseases of malarial origin. 



l!^ow, if our hogs were dying of unhealthy surroundings ; if their dis- 

 ease or diseases originate to any extent from malarious emanations, it 

 is certainly in this eastern belt that we should expect to find by far the 

 largest percentage of losses. We should not be disappointed in finding 

 a few in the central belt, but in the healthy, elevated west, where the 

 hogs roam in vast mountain forests, we should certainly expect an un- 

 usual freedom fr'om disease, especially in summer. Viewing the matter 

 from this standpoint, I visited the western and central sections, and 

 would have gone to the seaboard if my own health had not failed me 

 at this point. 



Fortunately statistics have been collected of the number of deaths 

 among swine in the different parts of the State for the year ending April 

 1, 1878, and these, as tar as can be obtained (twenty-three counties only 

 out of ninety-foiu'), are as follows : 



Counties. 



Bertie 



Buncombe . 



Bark 



Camden 



Chatham ... 

 Cherokee... 



Clay 



Craven 



Cumberland 

 Currituck .. 

 Franklin ... 

 Guilford.... 

 Hyde 



Counties. 



Lenoir 



McDowell . 



Martin 



Mitchell.. . 



Pender 



Person 



Richm^ond . 

 Eobcson . . . 



Rowan 



Wake 



Total 



Total number 

 of swine 



16 604 

 6,011 

 12, 755 

 8,973 

 14, 904 

 12, 789 

 10, 030 

 27, 411 

 14, 409 

 17, 448 



304, 492 



Number of 

 deaths. 



3,853 

 2,303 

 3,670 

 1,380 

 1,977 

 3,084 

 1,192 

 3,764 

 1,943 

 4,112 



66, 946 



That is to say, hogs have died to an alarming extent from Cherokee, 

 ]\Iitchell, and Buncombe counties in the mountains, to Camden, Currituck, 

 and Craven on the seaboard. Nor w^as the year above reported an ex- 

 ceptional one, as these losses are now beiug repeated iu Haywood and 

 Yancy in the west, and from thence in localities eastward to the sea. 

 Speaking iu round numbers we have reports here from one-fourth of the 

 coimties iu the State, and these counties in 1870 contained about (ta.e- 

 foiu-th of the hogs iu the State, and contain now very nearly the same 

 number as theu. We may, therefore, estimate the losses in the entire 

 State at four times the number in these counties, say 260,000. Taking 

 the counties mentioned, the loss amounts to 21^ per cent, of the whole 

 stock, and ranges from 38i- i)cr cent, in Camden to only 4i per cent, in 

 GuiLfortl. 



ARE THESE LOSSES THE KESULT OP A SINGLE DISEASE*? 



Tliis question has been raised again and again, whenever any measiu'e 

 lias been proposed for diminishing the death-rate of these animals, -and 

 iiotwithstandiug investigators iu widely diflerent localities have observed 

 similar symptoms and similar post-mortem appearances, the great ob- 

 jection to sanitary laws has always been the uncertainty in regard to the 

 artection or affections from which death occurred. It, tliereibre, seemed 

 advisal)lc to visit a large pnrt of the State iu order to decide this ques- 

 tion of primary imi)ortanee. Tlie disease was seen by the writer in 

 Haywood, Buncombe, and McDowell counties, in the mountain district, 



