MEDICAL TREATMENT OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 497 



** pors, and to eat coarse, innutritious, and unsuitable food. We can- 

 ** not, then, be surprised that under such circumstances they should 

 *' not only become the victims of disease from which in their nat- 

 " ural state they are free, but should also transmit to their progeny a 

 *' weakened and morbidly predisposed constitution. But we believe 

 *' that much of the hereditary disease of pigs is due to another 

 " cause than that just indicated, viz. : breeding in and in. * * * 

 '* In several cases which have come under our own observation, 

 " it has induced total ruin of the entire stock. At first it merely 

 *' rendered the animals somewhat smaller and finer than before, 

 *' and improved rather than injured their fattening properties. 

 *' Very soon, however, it caused a marked diminutioain size and 

 '' vigor, and engendered a disposition to various forms of scrofu- 

 '* lous disease, and to rickets, tabes mesenterica, and pulmonary 

 " consumption. Many of the boars became sterile, and the sows 

 " barren or liable to abortion. In every succeeding litter the pigs 

 " became fewer in number and more and more delicate and diffi- 

 " cult to rear. Many were born dead, others without tails, ears, 

 *' or eyes ; and all kinds of monstrosities were frequent. * * * 

 " The occurrence of such effects should induce the breeder of 

 " swine, and indeed of all animals, to practice breeding in and in 

 '' with much caution, to adopt it only occasionally and with strong 

 " and healthy animals, and to recollect that though it may im- 

 *' prove the symmetry and fattening capabilities of stock, it does 

 *' so at the sacrifice of their general vigor and disease-resisting 

 " powers." 



Dr. Dun states with reference to epilepsy, with which pigs are 

 often suddenly attacked, that the inherited tendency may be miti- 

 gated by keeping the animals clean, warm, and comfortable, and 

 supplied with a sufficiency of good, digestible, and somewhat laxa- 

 tive food. 



" To eradicate it the stock must receive an infusion of new 

 *' blood ; and this is especially necessary, as epilepsy in pigs 

 ** depends in most cases on continued breeding in-and-in." 



There sometimes appears among pigs an hereditary predisposi- 

 tion to lung diseases, indicated by a narrow chest, and a lanky and 



