DISEASE AMONG SWINE AND OTHER DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 87 



mother, will uot take tlie cholera, bnt as soon as they are weaned they take it as others 

 do. 



The disease usually sweeps over our country onee each year. Sometimes two years 

 may intervene, but such a rest we have never had more than once or twice. It gener- 

 ally reappears about eight or ten months from the time of its previous appear- 

 ance, just as measles and whooping-cough in the human family periodically reappear. 

 We hear of the disease aa existing at some distant point, and watch its progress. It 

 gradually appi'oaches until it reaches our next neighbor. If we can now succeed in 

 keeping our hogs and pigs in an inside inclosure, at some distance from the infected 

 ones, they will remain safe ; but i& they are allowed to smell of a sick hog through the 

 fence they invariably take the disease, which makes its appearance in eight or nine 

 days after being exposed to it. 



The first symptom of the disease is a short, quick cough when disturbed, and an 

 inclination to lie in bed. Some will be severely purged and others will vomit, while 

 some will do both. These symptoms are followed by high fever, unusual thirst, and a 

 high, purplish discoloration of the ears, belly, and flank. The duration of the attack 

 greatly varies. Some die within ten minutes after the first decided symptoms mani- 

 fest themselves, while others may linger a month and then die. The fatality of the 

 disease also varies. Some herds may escape with a loss of 25 per cent., while others 

 may be decimated to the extent of 90 per cent. It is not uncommon to hear of the loss 

 of all in small, well-kept herds. The average loss is about 50 per cent, of all hogs 

 attacked. 



As to cures, we have found none. The most successful treatment we have ever found 

 is to keep them away from water and sheltered from snow and rain. It matters not 

 how hot the weather may be, they should have no water either to drink or wallow in. 

 If they have grass or clover to feed on, give them nothing else. It is better for them 

 to have nothing at all for the first week than to feed them on corn. They should not 

 be crowded, and if daily changed from field to field, so much the better. 



The majority of writers on hog-cholera seem to know but little about the disease 

 which bears with si;ch crushing weight on this and similarly situated districts. It is 

 claimed by almost all of them that it is the neglect of proper sanitary conditions ; but 

 when the disease prevails, it is a well-known fact that among the best-fed and best- 

 groAvn hogs the fatality is three or four fold that which attends hard-favored, poor 

 shrimps that are but half fed and never properly cared for. We all agree that un- 

 healthy food and foul bedding engenders disease among swine, but that has no rela- 

 tion to our Western hog-cholera. 



In all older-settled parts of our country, hogs are restrained from running at large. 

 This is the practice in the prairie counties of Central Illinois, where the disease is not 

 known ; but even in this section of the State there are some farmers who shut their 

 hogs up in the barn -lot, where they are compelled to bed in the manure heap, and 

 where they soon sicken and die of filth. Those who raise hogs successfully keep them 

 on clover in summer; and if they have the range of the whole field for choice of bed- 

 ding and of cover, they will bed' in a clean place. We think we have learned by ex- 

 perience that there is no more healthy diet than clover for hogs, yet it is not uncom- 

 mon for 75 per cent, of those so kept to die in the clover-field. 



Some persons urge as an argument against the theory of contagion that the disease 

 must have a start somewhere. AVe know it has a start ; but where and for what pur- 

 pose, we are ignorant. Isolation sometimes prevents its appearance, but not always. 

 I have practiced this plan, and sometimes have succeeded in preventing the appearance 

 of the disease ; but at other times I have failed, and have lost hogs to the amount of 

 $1,000 at one visitation. 



Since cholera has proved so fatal among hogs, every sick or dead hog is charged to 

 the account of this disease. Even scientific investigators have greatly erred in mis- 

 taking manure-befouled sick hogs for cholera cases. 



Mr. A. P. Green, Yerinontville, Eaton County, Michig-au, says : 



I have had but few opportunities of making a diagnosis of the diseases which af- 

 flict farm-animals. For manj^ years past this|section has not been troubled seriously 

 with any contagious disease where fatal results have followed. The epizootic, which 

 traveled over nearly the whole country in 1875-76, has left many of the horses in this 

 locality in an unhealthy condition, afflicted with discharges from the nostrils, swell- 

 ing of the glands, and coughing, with rather a heavy appearance of the latter at times, 

 but unlike the heaves. When an abundant draught of cold water is taken the indica- 

 tions of wind-broken breathing cease. The animal becomes quite enfeebled in con- 

 stitution. 



Mr. John G. Oxee, Campbellstowii, Preble Couuty, Ohio, says: 



On the manifestation of the first symptoms of a disease which so seriously and 

 fatally afflicts hogs in this locality, the animal assumes a dull and sleepy appearance, 



