86 DISEASE AMONG SWINE AND OTHER DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 

 Mr. J. T. Law, Hawk Eidge, Cottee Couuty, Alabama, says : 



Cattle ill this county have been in good condition for several years past until re- 

 cently. They are sutiering to some extent with a disease called murrain, which proves 

 very fatal. For several years past swine have been afflicted with a disease called cholera. 

 Mine were first attacked during the war, and I have not been successful in raising 

 hogs since. There are various supposed causes of the disease. Some think that an 

 exclusive corn diet will produce the disease. Others think it is brought on by the hogs 

 feeding on mushrooms, which grow plentifully in the bottom-lands. A farmer in Pike 

 County informed me recently that he had been ifi the habit of giving his hogs nux 

 vomica, and that he had never lost one by cholera. Last spring I commenced feeding 

 this drug in slops from the kitchen, and since then my shoats have been doing very 

 well. I also feed a little corn. 



Chickens in some localities are dying rapidly of a disease called cholera. I have 

 heard of no remedy that has a tendency to arrest the malady. The excrements under 

 the roosts are of a deep-green color. 



Mr. W. B. Derrick, Baileys ille, Ogle County, Illinois, says : 



In regard to diseases of farm -animals in this locality I would say that, during the 

 past year, stock have generally been healthy, excepting that a considerable number of 

 hogs have been affected and some have died. Last summer a disease prevailed among 

 the swine in the western part of this county, and in adjoining counties, which was 

 termed " hog-cholera " by some, but more properly " lung disease," as the attacks were 

 accompanied by cough and congestion, which in many cases soon resulted fatally. On 

 a ;post-mortcm examination of some it was found that the lungs were badly diseased, 

 and apparently the direct cause of death. 



Within the past few weeks a uumber of hogs have died quite suddenly in this neigh- 

 borhood, from a disease supposed to be the veritable hog-cholera, as only certain herds 

 were affected and were soon decimated, while other herds in the vicinity escaped. 

 The hogs affected suffered from purging, and death soon ensued. I am unable at pres- 

 ent to give you a definite diagnosis of the disease, nor have I heard of any effectual 

 remedies after the animals have become badly affected. Several preventives and spe- 

 cifics have been tried. The best preventive, I think, consists in keeping the animals 

 in a sound, healthy condition, by feeding them wholesome food and keeping them 

 in clean, well-ventilated quarters. 



Last winter a large number of swine in this locality were afflicted with a cough, but 

 the most of them recovered in the spring. 



Mr. E. P. Chandler, Holly Springs, Dallas County, Arkansas, says : 



We have only to note a disease prevailing among hogs, which we term cholera, but 

 it is somewhat different in its diganosis from the cholera which prevailed to an alarm- 

 ing extent in this section some years ago. The first symptom noticed is an indisposi- 

 tion to eat or take nourishment of any kind, which primary symptom is followed with 

 purging and vomiting in most cases, but in some a complete cessation of the secretions 

 or excretions, accompanied with high febrile symptoms. The duration of the disease 

 is from one to five days. The principal remedies used have been arsenic, turpentine, 

 coal-oal, and opium, and some farmers have even resorted to mercurial preparations, 

 but all with abcrut the same efiect; that is, the loss of about 75 per cent, of the hogs 

 that have been attacked. At least 50 per cent, of the hogs in some localities have 

 already died, and the disease still rages with unabated violence. 



Mr. EzEKiEL Hemsinger, Burnt Prairie, White Couuty, Illinois, says: 



All the material drawbacks we have here in stock-raising is that among swine, known 

 as " hog-cholera," and from this cause our farmers have, to say the least, been kept 

 down, and some of them have even lost their homes. We have sufiered from it now 

 for seventeen or eighteen years, it having reache;! us in less than twelve months after 

 it first started in Ohio. In the first place, we are convinced that it is a contagious 

 disease, as hogs very rarely take it in any other way than from contact with diseased 

 animals. I live in a hog-raising district, and for twelve years past this has been the 

 universal belief of our farmers. In all this time, with the closest observation, we have 

 not known certainly of a case where hogs were kept in an inside inclosure where 

 others could not reach them. 



It is also a well-established fact that hogs have the disease but once. Though some 

 of the herd may sometimes show signs of the disease, they never take it again under 

 any circumstances. A sow may pass through cholera when a pig. If kept for a far- 

 rowing sow she will continue to bear her pigs in the midst of a dying herd until she 

 dit 8 of old age, and never again be affected by the disease. What is very strange and 

 unacconntablr, is the fact that her pigf^, as long as they draw nourishment from the 



