48 DISEASE AMONG SWINE AND OTHER DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



I have bad better success from the nse of Dr. Detraer's remedies, namely, tartar- 

 emetic and calomel (particularly tartar-emetic), and seclusion of the animal, than 

 from any other. I have administered it to quite a number, and have called the atten- 

 tion of my neighbors to it, and know of no instance in which it has been administered 

 that it has not been attended with beneficial results. I can hardly think of anything 

 that has not been recommended as a cure for cholera. I have tried dozens of so-called 

 remedies, sometimes with apparent success, but ninety-nine out of one hundred of 

 these, I am positive, are called remedies on no sufficient basis of extended experi- 

 ment. It may bo so also with the above. So far my experience and observation are 

 largely favorable to its efficacy. 



I feed in a large wood lot, where there is plenty of water and shelter from cold 

 winds. I throw com on the groiiud by wagon-loads for the animals to run to when 

 they wish, but never two loads consecutively at the same place. I break up the nests 

 occasionally and compel a change of sleeping quarters. I feed, at least once a week, 

 a mixture of salt and wood-ashes. I breed only from mature animals, preferring Berk- 

 shires for mothers and Polands for sires, but lay particular stress on maturity of breed- 

 ing stock. Whenever I find an animal refusing its food, or wheezing painfully, or 

 ■with an appearance of thumping in its sides when it breathes, or nestling down and 

 shivering as if it had a chill, I remove it from the lot as quickly as possible and feed 

 it from two tor four grains of tartar-emetitf in a small quantity of potato cooked with a 

 little grease to tempt an appetite. Whatever, if any, of these measures may be the 

 cause, my swine have been measurably free from cholera during the past four years. 

 Still, I recognize the danger that it may break out among them in a week, and also 

 the paradox that if it were not for the losses by cholera there would be no profit in 

 hogs. 



I cannot give a reasonable guess at the average duration of attacks, so wide is the 

 variance. I think at least sixty per cent, of the cases prove fatal. 



Mr. "W. H. Malone, Marion, McDowell County, Xorth Carolina, says : 



On inquiry I find the opinion prevails that fifty per cent, of the hogs in this county 

 have died during the last year, and that the fatality has been about as great in several 

 other counties of Western North Carolina. The disease is called "hog cholera," but 

 very little is known of its causes ; still less is known of any effectual cure for the dis- 

 ease. The symptoms areoften not discovered until the hogs are fouud dead ; frequently 

 from three to five head are found dead together. Sometimes the hog shows an indis- 

 position to eat, and generally dies within two or three days after the discovery of these 

 symptoms. The people have many remedies, but all have proven unavailable. 



A disease also known as cholera has been quite fatal among chickens for several yearg 

 past. They die suddenly — are often found dead in great niimbers in the morning. No 

 remedy for the disease has been discovered in this locality. 



Mr. J. E. HoLSTON, Anderson, Madison County, Indiana, says : 



During the past eighteen months we have had a fearful epidemic among our hogs, 

 called cholera. It has been very fatal, and last year carried ott' at least four-fifths of 

 all the hogs of the county. Some think the losses were even greater than this, but to 

 be on the safe side I put the figures at four-fifths. For ten years past the farmers of 

 this county have been raising for market from 25,000 to 30,000 head of hogs, and dur- 

 ing the last eighteen months they have lost by this disease in this class of animals 

 alone, in actual cash value, from .$300,000 to -f 400,000. These figures.are large, but they 

 are below the aggregate estimate of some of our stock-raisers. In the years 1875 and 

 1876 we had partial failures of the wheat crop ; so during the two years, with these 

 various causes, we have had a signal financial failure, and it will take at least four 

 or five years, with such crops as we have this season, to catch up again. 



The symptoms of this so-called hog cholera are varied and complex, so much so, in- 

 deed, as to render it very difficult to arrive at any definite conclusion. The first symp- 

 tom among young hogs or shoats is a cough, accompanied by a kind of heaving or 

 thumping in their flanks. This continues for a few hours or a day or two, when the ani- 

 mal dies. Some mope around, lie in the shade, and refuse to eat. Those affected in 

 this way live anywhere from two hours up to three or four days. Some bleed at the 

 nose, some are constipated, while others are laxative. The last-named symptom is rare, 

 and hogs thus affected generally get well. 



_ There are numbers of so-called remedies and preventives, but all have proved abor- 

 tive. Soft-soap, calomel, black antimony, coal-oil, dog-fennel tea, sulphur, sulphate 

 of iron, &c., have all been used, but without effect. No specific remedy or preventive 

 will ever be found until the origin or cause of this most fatal epidemic is discovered. 

 The farmers of Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, and Michigan are 

 suffering to as great an extent from the ravages of this disease as we are here in In- 

 diana. 



