56 DISEASE AMONG SWINE AND OTHER DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



drive the sick bofjs rapidly and heat the blood, and give but little food, is about as 

 good a remedy as any other. In some forms of the disease tartar-emetic has been 

 used successfully. Various other remedies are used, but all fail in a greater or less 

 degree. 



The animal usually lives but a few days after being attacked. In some cases hogs 

 become affected and lose flesh; the appetite appears good, but it seems impossible to 

 fatten them. In this condition they sometimes live for months. In cases like these 

 the better plan is to turn on grass and give no food, and in a few months the animals 

 may again become healthy. Seventy-tive per cent, of all the hogs attacked by this 

 disease die, and full ten per cent, of those that reach maturity in this county die of 

 some disease other than the above. 



]\rr. Samuel Preston, Mount Carroll, Carroll County, Illinois, says: 



Diseases among domestic fowl have been very fatal during the past and a few pre- 

 ceding years in this locality. My wife is of the opinion that a liberal mixture of 

 wheat-bran with other food is a preventive of disease. It is also excellent for hogs 

 confined chiefly to a corn diet, by keeping them from becoming constipated. 



With the exception of distemper, which, in a few cases, has proved fatal, horses 

 have been pretty free from contagious diseases. Since the epizootic passed over the 

 country a few years since, a large fatality has befallen young colts. Probably fifty 

 per cent, of these young animals have died the present season. Some attributed it to 

 the effects of that disease. 



A strange disease has attacked and proved fatal to my lambs during the past three 

 seasons. It comes upon them about midsummer. From apparent health they die 

 within from three to four hours. They are first noticed lying down in a natural posi- 

 tion, separated from the i-est of the flock. A tit or spasm seizing them, they will 

 throw themselves upon their sides and, with eyes set, will soon expire. In 1875, I lost 

 forty ; in 1876, fourteen ; and this season, four. None recover that are attacked. I 

 have found that weaning the lambs early checks the disease. 



Mr. W. O. Millard, who resides about two miles southwest of Milledgeville, and who 

 is one of the largest and most careful stock-raisers in this locality, has been very 

 unfortunate with his large stock of hogs during the past summer. He has lost one 

 hundred and ninety head, sixty-one of which were large hogs, the remainder shoats. 

 He claims that the disease which decimated his herd was nothing more nor less than 

 typhoid fever, and thinks it will yet extend far more than it has in this and adjoining 

 counties. 



Mr. M. Davenport, Oxford, Calhoun County, Alabama, says : 



Cholera among hogs is the most dreaded and fatal disease we have to contend with 

 here as afl'ecting any class of farm animals. It is seventeen or eighteen years since it 

 made its appearance in this locality, and it now passes over this country as an epi- 

 demic about every other year. I know of no remedy for it, neither can I give any 

 information in regard to its cause. Some years ago I lost three hundred head of hogs 

 by its ravages in the short space of fifteen days. The disease has prevailed among my 

 hogs six or eight different times, doing great damage at every visitation. I have tried 

 almost every prescription recommended as a remedy without any beneficial results 

 whatever. If, in your proposed investigation, you succeed in finding either a prevent- 

 ive or a cure for this terrible malady, you will receive the thanks and blessings of 

 hundreds of thousands of stock-raisers in this country. 



Mr. J. Ellwood Hancock, Columbus, Burliugton County, New Jer- 

 sey, says : 



I have had some experience with pleuro-pneumonia in cattle, having lost one-third 

 of my herd from its ravages in 1861, when 1 succeeded in eradicating the disease after 

 a duration of about six months. I had a second visitation of the malady in my herd 

 in the early part of 1876, when I lost six head from a herd of twenty-throe. My expe- 

 rience is that it runs its course in not over three weeks after the animal becomes so 

 much affected as to prevent its eating — usually in a shorter time. Of the animals 

 affected, I am satisfied not more than one-third will recover. I applied to a veterinary 

 surgeon, who prescribed a powder which I think was a benefit, giving it, as I did, to 

 the whole herd as soon as it was ascertained the disease was present. After the dis- 

 ease is fully developed in an animal I have verj' little faith in medicines, as a large 

 proportion will die with the best tri:',atment. Although my whole herd was not really 

 sick, the larger part of it showed signs of the disease ; some only for a few days, how- 

 ever. It remained among my cattle for about four months. I am of the opinion that 

 on both occasions the disease was introduced by cattle pnrchased by me. The first 

 case showed itself in about six weeks after the introduction into my herd of the 



