DISEASES OF SWINE AND OTHER ANIMALS. 135 



EEPOKT OF DE. ALBERT BUNLAP. 



Hou. Wm. G. Le Due, 



Commissioner of Agriculture : 



Sir: Ou the last day of July, 1878, 1 received from you a "commission 

 to act for the Department of Agricidture iu the examination of diseased 

 animals," accompanied with printed uistructions directing me to par- 

 ticularly examine into causes of the disease known as " hog cholera." 

 I interpreted my instructions as follows: Find out what disease or dis- 

 eases are destroying the swine and the symptoms of the same ; the causes, 

 both predisposing and exciting; the stage of incubation, morbid anat- 

 omy, »S:c., and to discover how far attention to hygienic care will prevent 

 the spread of the disease in infected herds and its inception in healthy 

 droves ; and in addition to test the value of various medicinal remedies 

 for curing the sick and preventing the spread of the disease. Eecog- 

 nizing the primal fact that the hog is an animal of short life, low vitality, 

 and of comparatively little pecuniary value, singly, as compared with 

 other domestic animals, and that they are kept in large droves by most 

 Western farmers, I considered it of little profit to attemx)t to meet each 

 special symptom with its appropriate remedy ; but rather, after having 

 folly diagnosed the disease or diseases, their nature, causes and lesions, 

 and the predisposing causes which had assisted in the spread of the 

 same, to try and devise a system of treatment, both hygienic and medici- 

 nal, which could be used in the treatment of large droves already infected, 

 and reduce the liability of healthy droves contracting the disease. I do 

 not claim for this report any degree of perfection. The limited time 

 allowed only i)ermitted the examination of the disease under certain 

 climatic influences, and not through the various seasons of the year. I 

 am, therefore, only able to report on the diseases which came directly 

 under my own observation in this State (Iowa) during the two months 

 of investigation, briefly referring to cases of diphtheria which I carefully 

 observed last winter, and of which I have seen no cases during this inves- 

 tigation. 



The medical literature upon the subject of the diseases of swine was 

 very limited, and I could find no strictly scientific work treating upon 

 the topic. I was, therefore, forced to fall back upon my knowledge of 

 the diseases of man as a foundation, and after having fully examined the 

 symptoms and morbid lesions in a series of cases selected out of an 

 infected drove, I compared those symptoms and lesions with like symp- 

 toms and lesions found in man, and thus arrived, I think, at correct con- 

 clusions as to the proper name of the diseases under consideration. I 

 was thus materially assisted in tracing out both the predisposing and 

 exciting causes of these ailments. To the tasual observer it may seem 

 absurd to form conclusions in regard to diseases of swine from a previous 

 knowledge of the diseases of man, but when we consider that the hog 

 resembles his two-footed brother in many respects, has a similar alimen- 

 tary canal, like viscera, the same system of blood-vessels and nervous 

 structure, is also omnivorous, and that the diseases under consideration 

 are caused by specific blood poisons, which act in like manner on man 

 and brute through the process of inflammation, we can but conclude that 

 if we iind a set of certain classified spnptoms in a hog "svith a distinctly 

 marked uniform set of pathological lesions, and a similar set of symptoms 

 in man with lilce morbid lesions, that these two are one and the same 

 disease, and should bear the same title, especially when we can trace 

 the cause 'ji both cases to the same exciting agent. I have been forced 



