512 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



as Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska, swine diseases 

 are very important, and cause losses of hundreds of thou- 

 sands of dollars annually. 



The Bureau of Animal Industry of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture is experimenting at the present 

 time in an attempt to produce a serum for the protective 

 inoculation of swine with hog cholera and swine plague, 

 and trials made with the serums so far produced seem to 

 have been quite successful; but so far the production 

 of these serums has been rather expensive, and more re- 

 searches will be required before arriving at an established 

 basis. 



Dr. A. T. Peters, of the Nebraska Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station, is working to produce an attenuated germ of 

 hog cholera to use for a preventive inoculation, but his re- 

 sults are not yet definite. 



A cause of confusion with the contagious swine diseases 

 that are commonly spoken of as " hog cholera" is that there 

 are two distinct infectious diseases of swine ; either may be 

 met with, especially in the east. One is hog cholera, the 

 other swine plague ; an outbreak may be one disease alone, 

 or the two diseases may be associated in the same pig. In 

 using a preventive virus or serum, it will first be necessary 

 when the disease appears to decide which has to be dealt 

 with, or whether both are present. Many times this cannot 

 be positively decided upon unless the germs are isolated and 

 cultivated, in order to see whether the organisms of one or 

 the other or of both diseases are present. 



Hog cholera is more a specific disease of the pig than 

 swine plague ; the former is confined to swine alone, while 

 the latter seems to be more of an infectious pneumonia due 

 to a germ found in putrifying swill, and may be communi- 

 cated to sheep and lambs, calves and perhaps horses. 



If the Board were in a position to do more for the farmer 

 in helping him to prevent or limit outbreaks of contagious 

 disease among swine, it is possible more reports would be 

 received relating to them ; as it is, it would appear that 

 these diseases have not prevailed to an}'^ very alarming ex- 

 tent during the past year. 



