170 DISEASES OF SWINE AND OTHER ANIMALS. 



almost liviufj skeletons; but yon never could discern any urinary or 

 other diseharjies on the clean dry floor of their pens. I made some 

 2)08t-mortcm examinations, and generally found inflammation in various 

 stages in the posterior portion of the lungs, and the glands and throat 

 in a gangTenons condition — blood thick and black as tar and disinclined 

 to flow; indeed, in some cases it was black, hard, and as dry as a chip. 

 Any one Avho carefully reads the reports of the Department of Agricul- 

 tui'e for 1877 will perceive that some of the writers describe the disease 

 as attended by a fever; others, agaui, speak of the peculiar eruption 

 attending it. ISTow, I submit that if there is a fever accompanying hog- 

 cholera, and an eruption also, it is prima-facie evidence that it is a dis- 

 ease which rightfully belongs to that class of maladies known as erup- 

 tive fevers, and it only remains for us to establish to which species of the 

 exanthemata it belongs for us to place its treatment on solid and well- 

 established grounds. 



The description I gave in 1872 and the account given by Dr. Gillespie 

 in 1877, goes very far to identify rotlieln with the hog disease that j)Te- 

 vailed in Piedmont region of Virginia in 1877-r-'78. Fortunately the remedy 

 I shall recommend as a preventive, as well as a curative, agent during 

 its prevalence is equally beneficial in scarlet fever, diphtheria, and ery- 

 sipelas in some forms. It is a trite saying but a true one that an ounce 

 of preve7ition is worth a pound of cure. If this is true in regard to dis- 

 eases in the human family, it becomes eminently more so in the diseases 

 incident to domestic animals- 



Etiology. — The causes of disease are, unfortunately, frequently ol)scure, 

 although they are sometimes evident enough. The causes of disease 

 resolve into several varieties. As writers .divide them differently, a short 

 explanation may not be out of place. As a general thing the predis- 

 posing and occasional causes ai-e the only ones on which much stress is 

 laid by medical writers. Causes accessory are those which have only a 

 secondary influence in the production of disease, as the want of proper 

 shelter for domestic animals in inclement weather may be indu'ectly the 

 means of producing disease among them. Accidental causes are those 

 which act only on certain given conditions and which do not always 

 produce the same disease. Cold may be an accidental cause of acute 

 pneumonia, inflammatory rheumatism, &c. Proximate cause is the dis- 

 ease itself; superabundance of blood is the cause of plethora, &c. ; exter- 

 nal causes are such as act externally to the patient, as cold, &c. ; these 

 causes are such as determine the forjn of the disease ; internal causes 

 are those which arise within the body; mechanical causes are those 

 which act mechanicaUy upon the windpipe in producing suffocation; 

 negative causes comprise all those things the i^iivation of which may 

 derange the functions, as want of food, water, ike. They are opposed 

 to positive causes which of themselves directly induce disease, as the 

 use of crude, rotten, indigestible food, &c; occasional or exciting 

 causes (actual causes) are those which immediately i)roduce the disease. 

 Occult, hidden, or obscure causes, any causes with which we are unac- 

 quainted; also certain inappreciable conditions of the atmosphere — 

 if I may use such a word, " distemperatiu'c" — which we believe gives 

 rise to endemic and epidemic diseases. Physiological causes are those 

 which act only on living matter, as narcotics ; predisposing or remote 

 causes are those which render the body liable to disease, as jn^evious 

 low, depressed condition of system, bad health, «&c. ; principal causes 

 are those which exert, the chief influence in the production of disease as 

 distinguished from the accessor^" causes ; specific or asserted causes are 

 those which always produce a determinate disease, contagia, for ex 

 amx)le. 



