DISEASE AMONG SWINE AND OTHER DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 14o 



inattontiou to the laws of hygiene, but they extend no further than the stock of the 

 individual owner, and in no sense endanger that of his neighbor, nor of the country at 

 large. 



If now we come to the contagious and communicable diseases of animals, we are 

 confronted by an entirely different state of things. Here the existence in the utmost 

 confines of our territory of one diseased animal, or even of its dried or otlierwise vir- 

 ulent products, is a source of danger to the entire country. Here tlie individual owner 

 can plead no inherent right to preserve and treat the diseased animal at the expense 

 of an unlimited iux^rease of the poison with each day of such preservation, and of 

 an imminent aud ever-increasing danger to the live stock of his neighbors and of the 

 commonwealth. If a State or county harbors such a disease it cannot expect to main- 

 tain the same fiee and unrestricted commerce with adjacent nations as if it bore no 

 such elements of danger. The virus of the contagious disease may be compared to a 

 seed which in suitable soil and climate xmdergoes an extraordinary increase with each 

 successive generation, aud is only limited by the lack of new ground into which it 

 may spread. Now we have at the mercy of such diseases no less than 90,000,000 head 

 of farm quadrupeds, of a money value of nearly $iiO0,OOO,O0O, and all this is placed in 

 jeopardy by the existence of contagious diseases, whether generated in our own land 

 or imported from abroad. But the money value of the whole of our live stock fur- 

 nishes but an imperfect idea of the losses that would be entailed upon us consequent 

 on the general diffusion of contagious disease. Some of the most deadly plagues, such 

 as rinderpest, boviue lung-fever, sheep-pox, and hog-cholera, prove fatal to about one- 

 half of the animals attacked, and as a new and susceptible generation is exposed 

 every year, the monetary depletion in a generally infected country is to be estimated 

 rather by the amount of yearly increase in numbers than by the losses of the tirst 

 year. The results of such plagues are to be looked upon as a yearly tax of the most 

 oppressive kind, which tend to increase in all cases, by extension, with the lapse of 

 time, and which will always be heightened in equal ratio as we improve the kind and 

 multiply the numbers of our live stock. What is still worse, the permanent fertility 

 of the soil is in a great degree dependent on the numbers of the live stock which it 

 supports, therefore any inevitable rediiction of the animals, or anything that renders 

 the soil or district inimical to such animals, will lay the foundation for an increasing 

 sterility whenever it is unremunerative to bring manures from a distance. If we now 

 consider that in self-supporting countries four-tifths of the population live by the cul- 

 tivation of the soil or by the rearing of stock, we can estimate the stupendous inter- 

 ests involved in the occurrence of such pestilential devastations. As regards property 

 at stake, we own incomparably more live stock than any nation of Europe, Russia aloue 

 excepted. The following table, giving a comparison of our live stock with that of the 

 two foremost European nations, will amply illustrate this : 



United States (1875) 



Prussia (1877) .. 



Great Britain and Ireland (1877) 



Horses and mules. 



11,149,800 

 3, M52, 237(1867) 

 2, 790, 851 (1874) 



Cattle. 



Sheep. 



27, 870, 700 35, 935, 300 

 7,906,818 I 22,262,087 

 6, 115, 491 I 30, 313, 941 



I 



Swine. 



25, 726, 800 

 4,875, 114 

 2, 422, 832 



In absolute numbers, then, we exceed those nations by three, four, and even five 

 times in all classes of farm-animals excepting sheep; and yet, in relation to our terri- 

 tory, our live stock is very deficient. We must increase our live stock if we would main- 

 tain the fertility of our land ; and when our stock approaches, as it one day m ly, to 

 that of the whole continent of Europe, we will be exposed to dangers equal to those 

 of Europe in centuries jjast, if we continue to ignore the animal pestilences in our 

 legislation. 



As illustrating the possibilities of such losses, I may state that a single extension of 

 such a disease as rinderpest has cost Western Europe as much as 30,000,000 head of 

 cattle, probably worth |;1,500,000,000. In eighty years of the last century it cost 

 France alone 10,000,000 head of cattle. (Faust.) In the six years preceding 1862 lung- 

 fever and epizootic aphtha cost Great Britain over 1,000,000 head of cattle, worth at 

 least .$.50,000,000. (Fifth Report of Medical Officer of Privy Council.) In eighteen 

 months of the prevalence of rinderpest, in 18G5-'G6, the same country lost about 

 $10,000,000. It would be easy to go on at length with such statements of loss by differ- 

 ent nations, but it will be more i)rofitable to particularize some of the diseases that 

 prevail among us, or threaten us. 



Hog-cholera. — lu the absence of reliable statistics it is impossible to estimate our 

 yearly losses ivoia preventable disease. But it is estimated that during last year one of 

 our native-animal plagues — the so-called hog-cholera — swept off not less than .$20,000,- 

 000 worth of stock, and that one-fourth of this loss occurred in Illinois. Several de- 

 structive outbreaks occurred in this vicinity as the result of importing western hogs, 



