HOG CHOLERA. 1277 



wounds must be dressed at least once a day with an effective disinfect- 

 ant, for instance, with a sohition of carbolic acid or thymol, till a heal- 

 ing has been effected* (See disinfectants, page 990.) 



Swine plague Is very often communicated from herd to herd and from 

 place to place by a careless, and, in some cases, even criminal contamina- 

 tion of running streamlets, creeks and rivers with the excrements and 

 other excretions of diseased hogs and pigs, and with the carcasses and 

 parts of the carcasses of the dead animals. This source of the spreading 

 of the disease can be stopi)ed only by declaring such contamination of 

 streamlets a nuisaii'3e and making the offense punishable by law. Allow- 

 ing swine affected with the plague to have access to such streamlets 

 should be considered as constituting good evidence of such a contamina- 

 tion, as also the throwing of dead hogs, or parts of a carcass, into such 

 streamlets, creeks, or rivers. 



VI. The Disease as Observed in Swine. 



Symptoms during life. — "The disease may last from a few hours to 

 four weeks in fatal cases. Quite frequently animals will die very sud- 

 denly and without warning. Some of these cases present the hemorrhagic 

 type of the disease very distinctly. In the majority of cases which came 

 under our observation recently, the disease lasted from one to two weeks. 

 The most prominent symptoms are those of great debility and capricious 

 appetite. In about one-half of the cases, diarrhoea set in afler three or 

 four days. The feces are usually liquid, at times blood-stained. In 

 ^hose cases where ulceration is extensive, diarrhcea is always present. The 

 vectal temperature is usually high but variable, and not at all reliable as 

 ?. means of determining the intensity of the disease. 



Lesions observed after death. — Discoloration or reddening of the skin 

 is quite rare. When present, it is usually found about the genitals in 

 both sexes. The subcutaneous fatty tissue is frequently of a diffuse red- 

 ness and rarely studded with small extravasations. 



The peritoneal cavity usually contains more or less straw colored serum 

 in advanced cases. In those which die quite suddenly serous effusions 

 are absent. The coils of the intestine are now and then covered with a 

 few fibrinous, stringy coagula, indicating slight peritonitis. Beneath 

 the serous covering of the intestines extravasations of blood are quite 

 common in very acute cases. They are most frequently encountered on 

 the large intestine throughout its entire lens'th or limited to the csecum. 

 Occasionally a few coils of the ilium are covered with punctiform ecchy- 

 moses. They are found now and then on the stomach. Only once did 

 we see large ecchymoses in the fatty tissue sorrounding the kidney. 



The spleen is usually considerably swollen, dark, gorged with blood. 



