DISEASES OF SWINE AND OTHER ANIMALS. 169 



tliouglit liis liogs had some kind of a fever. He tried no remedies. I tliinli 

 I can safely set down tlie loss by disease this season in hogs in fliis rich 

 X>roductive country at 75 per cent. In my travels through this section 

 of the State I saw many hogs, partially recovered, hut still in a low 

 state of health, that had lost their hair and their hoofs. The tegimient- 

 ary tissue (skin) looked as if it came off in fine bran patches, instead of 

 coming off in large flakes. This I considered unmistakable evidence of 

 tegumentary excitement. The internal mucous membrane being a con- 

 tinuation of the external tegumentary tissue (sldn), we may reasonably 

 expect to find the internal mucous membrane likewise in a state of 

 phlegmhymenitis. Add to this symptom the significant fact of such 

 gTeat thirst, and we raise a strong presumption that the disease is a fever, 

 and one of the eruptive fevers, beyond peradventure. The instinct of 

 the hog tells him what is cooling to him, therefore you find him eating 

 mud, soft soap, his own excrements, rotten wood, ashes, and the like. 

 I met no intelligent man who did not believe that either the hog's lungs 

 or his throat were affected. 



Mrs. Simpson's hogs, running in the common just below the village of 

 Aldie, within fifty yards of Ish's tan-yard, w^re among the first to take 

 the disease. Ish's hogs ran regularly in the common, yet none of them 

 took the disease, while almost every one of Mrs. Simpson's hogs died. 

 Ish gave his hogs chamber-lye in their slop. Mrs. Simpson did not use 

 this remedy with her hogs. J. Milton McVeigh tried the same remedy, 

 but without apparent effect. B. F. Carter, sr., gave his hogs coal-oil, 

 and lost none. B. F. Carter, jr., gave his hogs the oil in same quantity 

 and lost all. D. Mount and Daniel Lee used asafetida one year, with 

 supposed good effect ; another year it had no effect at all. Thomas A. 

 Kector gave his hogs soap-suds and soda in their slop one year, accord- 

 ing to advice of the writer, with marked success; persuaded by others 

 to give turj^entine and sulphur in the present epidemic, his loss was 

 large. I found many persons who had come to the conclusion that diu*- 

 ing some period of the disease the hog's throat was sore, and that the 

 disease was the putrid sore throat, which was so fatal to swine some 

 forty years ago in this Piedmont region of Virginia. I find most of 

 them agree that there is swelling about the face and eyes, eruption on 

 the skin, great thirst, often cough, occasional vomiting, constipated 

 bowels, a thimiping in the side or sides, lower bowels full of hard, dry 

 balls of fecal matter, with a rapid loss of flesh. Other farmers seem to 

 notice sequelte of the disease more, and speak of swelling of the fore- 

 legs ; that they shed their hair and hoofs ; skin peels off", and new skin 

 becomes scurfy. 



I gave for publication a short history of the so-called hog-cholera as 

 it prevailed in this section of Virginia in 1808 or 18G9. I have no notes 

 left, and I am not morally certain in which year the disease prevailed. 

 I remember, however, to have remarked that the first indication of sick- 

 ness in the hog noticed by me was closing the eye in the bright sunshine 

 of mornmg. Xow, this symj^tom may have been from swelling of the 

 face, but I then attributed it to contraction of the i)upil of the eye and 

 from intolerance of light. The next one had a ticking in the side, and 

 then a rapid loss of flesh, so much so that a large fat hog would become 

 so thin in a few days that you could almost read a newspaper through 

 him. I will remark that the only symptom at all like cholera is this 

 rapid loss of flesh. But then there is no ]mrgiug, no loss of tluid by 

 urination, but it seems rather that the heat in the internal organs of the 

 hog is so intense that all the fluids in his system are diied up. To sat- 

 isfy myself on this point I jilaced them in pens, with clean, dry plank 

 for flooring, overnight, and in. the morning the largo hogs would be 



