SWINE PLAGUE. 311 



the specific microbes, which are said to be motile, oval bacteria, 

 aerobic and anaerobic, unstainable by Gram's metliod, and but 

 slightly coloured by Weigert's process. This is the disease 

 usually found in Britain. 



Definition. — Swine fever may be defined to be a highly con- 

 tagious and infectious disease, having a period of incubation, after 

 inoculation, of about five days, at the end of which period there 

 is elevation of temperature to 104° or 106°, succeeded by signs 

 of general ill-health, and generally a rash on the skin. 



When propagated by cohabitation, it appears, according to 

 experiments performed by Dr. Lutton in America, that the 

 digease took about thirteen days to manifest itself in healthy 

 pigs amongst which diseased ones had been introduced. 



The disease is very common in Great Britain, Ireland, America, 

 and various parts of the world. 



It prevails as as an epizootic, and is the most fatal malady 

 to which swine are liable ; but pigs differ in their susceptibility 

 to it. 



Omises. — Like cattle plague, pleuro-pneumonia, &c., swine fever 

 appears to arise from contagion and infection only ; no amount 

 of bad management, filth, want of drainage, nor decomposinfr food 

 being sufficient of themselves to induce it. The microbe is said 

 to be a small oval motile bacterium, both aerobic and anaerobic, 

 measuring -o 5^ q-s- to lo-yoir in length, and r-shnr of an inch in 

 l)readth. Klein, however, states that it is due to a small bacillus 

 which in cultures assumed a long leptothrix-like filament which 

 develops spores, which become free after the disintegration of 

 the filamentous matrix ; and Detmer discovered a bacillus which 

 he called Bacillus suis, and said it was the specific agent. The 

 disease is transmissible by inoculation to the mouse and pigeon, 

 and, according to Law (Cornell University), to the sheep and rat. 



PATHOLOGY AND SYMPTOMS. 



The symptoms are loss of appetite, general prostration, small 

 and frequent pulse, hanging ears, sullen appearance, painful and 

 haggard expression, watery eyes, conjunctiva red and spotted, 

 dirty secration about the eylids, generally preceded by a red 



