DISEASES OF SWINE AND OTHER ANIMALS. 143 



the pig would have been well again. In some cases I have found small 

 abscesses of solitary glands, each one discharging matter on pressiue, 

 and I think this will usually be found the primary stage of the ulcer. 

 Whatever other morbid lesions may be found, the larmer should carefully 

 inspect the inner coat of the bowels and determine the nature of the 

 lesions of the ilio-coecal valve in order that he may accuratei^^' diagnose 

 the disease. 1 would impress this particularly, because in several in- 

 stances I Oldened swine and found no morbid apjiearanccs whatever to 

 account for the severe symptoms until the bowels vrcre examined and 

 the inner coat exi)0sed. In one case a farmer in Hamilton county, who 

 had made a specialty of doctoring hog cliolera, after making what he 

 called a thorough examination, declared that a diseased hog was healthy, 

 but I opened the bowels and showed the signs of specilic disease on the 

 inner coat. Although we hud the lesions in both tyi)hus and typhoid 

 fever at this jjoint, we can only look upon it as an effect of a certain 

 poison in the blood, but why it uniformly de\'elops morbid lesions at 

 this one point has not yet been determined, even in man. 



Diphtheria. — A specilic septic blood-poison, contagious in its character, 

 with iuhammation of mucous membrane of pharynx (throat), and exuda- 

 tion of lymph ; inflammation and abscess of kidneys ; constipation and 

 fever. SjTuptoms: Loss of appetite ; fever; swellingof glands of neck; 

 discharge of blood and matter from nose and mouth ; weakness ; the 

 bowels are casually constipated ; the urine is at first increased in quan- 

 tity, but afterwards decreases in amount. The hog may try to eat, but 

 there seems to be a difUculty in swallowing the food. As the disease 

 advances all the symptoms are aggravated. The hog becomes stupid, 

 and only moves when forced to do so. The glands of the neck are enor- 

 mously enlarged, the urine diminished, and is at last entirely suppressed. 

 The animal strains to evacuate its bowels every time it gets up, but 

 passes only a few hard lumps, and, unless relieved, it dies within from 

 two to five days from suffocation, caused hy swelhug of the throat or 

 accumulated poison in the blood acting on the brain. The primary dis- 

 ease may be either constitutional or local, but in either case both gene- 

 ral and local eifects are soon manifest. This disease is a contagious blood- 

 poison received into the blood, and passing through the stage of incuba- 

 tion, manifests its presence fiist when the system strives to rid itself of 

 the poison through the four great waste- gates of the body — the lungs, 

 kidneys, bowels, and skin. The expired air, loaded with the poisonous 

 excretion, passes from the lungs, and as it obtains exit from the wind- 

 pipe, is throAvn with force against the posterior fauces. There the poison 

 is deposited, and diphtheritic inflammation and exudation is the result. 

 The kidneys, ako, strive to eject the foreign matter and are at first stim- 

 ulated to increased work ; hence the increased flow of urine ; but as the 

 labor increases the kidneys become irritated from overwork, then in- 

 flamed, and the septic poison, instead of being eliminated, is deposited 

 in the kidneys, and abscess in the same is the result. If the free egress 

 of air from the lungs is prevented, either bj" swelling of glands externally, 

 or swelUng and exudation internally, either in fauces or wind-pipe, the 

 poison cannot be thi'own ofl" as freely as it passes into the lungs, and ab- 

 scess of the lungs is the result. In fact, wherever this poison is deposited 

 an abscess at once forms. The skin is hot and dry, and there is often an 

 eruption or rash apparent on the surface. Abscess of the liver is also a 

 common secpience of this disease if it has contiiuied for any length of 

 time. The bowels are invariably costive, and, unless relieved by iujec- 

 tiou or brisk cathartics, the hog will die, either in convulsions or coma, 

 from the luiited dei)ressing influence of the yeptic and ur;emic poisons 



