ISO 1)ISEASES OF SVfijfE AND OfHE^ ANBlAtS. 



root-vegetables and milk, and tliat soda is furnished them liberally with 

 green food, and they will not become so emaciated and debilitated. 



Malarial influences can ail:ect swine as well as man, and is one of the 

 most ti'oublesome and fatal of complications in infectious fevers in their 

 first stages. The low sloughs, covered with green mold and surrounded 

 with rank vegetation, are not the most healthy resting places for swine 

 or any animal, biped or quadruped, especially between the hours of sun- 

 set and sunrise. The plants aregiving off carbonic acid gas during the 

 night, and the wet ground, loaded with organic matter, is giving off 

 malaria. If the hogs are allowed to breathe this poisonous air their 

 blood becomes vitiated and health is impaired, as in man. Tyjdius and 

 typhoid fever find a favorable location for incubation here. To avoid 

 these two causes combined, impure water and malaria, let the drove be 

 gathered in at sundown into a large pen on high ground with sloping 

 surface prepared, and kept there until the morning sun has dispelled 

 the perceptible mists. If the day is inclement the drove may be allowed 

 to range two hours after the hour for sunrise. They should be furnished 

 pure water to drink before leaving, if they are to be confined in a range 

 with stagnant water. IMany will say that all this trouble will entail in- 

 creased expense; but it has not been found more expensive where tried. 

 Swine, like any other domesticated animal, can be trained to regular 

 habits, and a drove can be trained to return to its sleeping place, if a 

 small quantity of food is furnished them each night until the habit is 

 formed. 



Unusual exercise, which debilitates the hog and weakens his vital 

 force, is another cause of the inception of contagious diseases. In sev- 

 eral cases which have come under my observation, choice hogs for breed- 

 ing purposes were purchased from apparently healthy herds, taken on 

 cars and wagons a considerable distance, and after their arrival showed 

 signs of disease and eventually died. In a few days others in the hetd 

 to which they had been taken were affected, and thus the disease was 

 spread from a new focus to a large number of droves. I, of course, 

 could not state where these hogs contracted the disease. A^^ien they 

 started from their first home they were probably in i:)erfect health, but 

 confined in a close box and jolted arortnd in a wagon, or confined in cars 

 with irregular or unusual feed, and nervous excitement as additional 

 causes, brought on a gastric irritation, and during these travels they 

 were exi)osed to a contagious illness more or less intense, and their sys- 

 tem being in a condition to receive and take up the poison, it found a 

 lodgment, and after a stage of incubation sho^^d itself by outward 

 symptoms. Hogs brought from strange droves should invariably be 

 kept in strict quaratine for at least fourteen days, no matter Jiow per- 

 fect the bill of health they bring from their former owners. Neglect of 

 this precaution has been the cause of the spread of tlie disease from 

 new points, and many counties could trace the disease which had car- 

 ried off thousands of liogs to a single imported animal. In one county 

 visited in Western Iowa, which had previously had no swine disease, an 

 estimated loss of over $100,000 worth of hogs was claimed to have been, 

 sustained during the past year, and this disease started from a central 

 point — a single imported hog. (I use the term imported as meaning 

 from a distant county, or another State.) The disease spread to the 

 drove in which it Avas jdaced, and from that drove to adjoiniug herds. 

 Several expensive lawsuits for damages and much ill-feeling between 

 stock-men might have been avoided by attention to this point. 



We will now talce up the subject of treatment, which naturally divides 

 itself under two heads — Freventive and Curative. Each of these can be 



