146 DIbEASE AMONG SWINE AND OTHER DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



Gorlach, and a uuuibcr of others, have supplied ample proof of this. There is even 

 grounds for concludiuff that in certain cases it is conveyed iu the milk, a terrible idea, 

 considering the number of infants to whom cows' milk is the staple diet. That this 

 disease is common in our herds is with me a matter of frecjueut observation, and when 

 the diseased have been allowed to min<;le with the healthy, and their discharges drop- 

 ped upon the food have been consumed by others, the decimation of the herd has been 

 common. 



Milk-nidcncsK is perhaps beyond the uepd of legislative control, being confined to 

 -unreclaimed localities, yet ])hysicians in such distiicts claim that many fatal cases of 

 this affection occur in distant cities as the result of eating cheese and butter made iu 

 the unhealthy regions. 



ContaijioHH foot-vot in xlirrp. — This is to be classed with Texas fever. It is confined 

 to the lands on which the diseased animals have been, but its prevalence is uot checked 

 by the supervention of cold weather. At times, where tlie means of communication 

 were abundant, as eight years ago iu Iowa, this disease has caused a wide-6i»read de- 

 struction among flecks, and brought ruin on the llock-masters. Tlie disease should 

 therefore be checked by, at the least, an interdict ou the sale of sheep from affected 

 tiocks, excepting for immediate slaughter, and to be conveyed iron! infected p;istures iu 

 wagons. 



rariixilic discritics. — Besides these there is a long list of diseases due to parasites, which 

 it would unduly lengthen this communication to do more than glance at, but which 

 are highly destructive to our live stock, and in some cases inimical to human life a^ 

 well. There are the various forms of parasitic mange, and notably tlie scab in sheep, 

 which prove the occasion of most extensive losses. There is the lluke or liver-rot, 

 which frequently sweeps ott' over 0.000,000 sheep per annum from the snuill island of 

 Great Britain, and is uow destroying the sheep of New South Wales, where it was iu- 

 troduced iu the bodies of German rams. I have long sought iu vain for this ]»arasite 

 ijn America, but Mr. Stewart speaks of it as already common on Long Island ; therefore 

 we may look upon it as already in our midst. There are the luug-worms of cattle, 

 horses, sheep, and pigs, which yearly cut oti" great numbers of our young stock, espe- 

 cially in the case of sheep. An Iowa tiock-master writes me that his cunutry contains 

 100,000 fewer sheep than it did seven years ago, though no one had found the real 

 cause of the great mortality until he read an account of these worms which I had 

 published iu the New York Tribune. Similar accounts come from Illinois. Intestinal 

 worms produce destructive epizootics, notably iu horses, sheep, and swine, when they 

 have been allowed to propagate fouly, and the eggs getting into wells and water- 

 courses are often carried far fi-om the original habitat, and form centers for the deter- 

 mination of new outbreaks. I know of several instances iu which laud has had to be 

 evacuated because of the abundauce of such germs, which reuder it absolutely fatal 

 to stock, 



If'onns in solid organs. — But it is not intestinal worms alone that demand attention. 

 The hydalifh of the brains of cattle and sheep, derived from a tape-worm of the dog ; 

 the ln'jdati(h of the liver, &c., of man and herbivora, also from a cauiue tape-worm ; 

 the hydatids or measles of pigs and occasionally of man, from a tape-worm of n;an : 

 the In/datids or measles of calves, also from a tape-worm of m;in ; the liver, fat, and 

 kidney worm of swine, and the irichinaoi man and animals, should be rooted out wher- 

 ever found, and noue left to develop a veritable ei)izootic, as has occasioually hap- 

 pened. 



In conclusion, I submit, in ^ iew of the enormous value of our live stock, and of these 

 multiform dangers that threaten them luore or less imminently, whether it is not our 

 duty as a people io institute a system of sanitary administration for the exclusion and 

 extinction of animal pestilences. No need of agriculture more urgently demands 

 recognition than does that of protection from the ever-injreasiug danger to our live 

 stock from fatal contagious and otherwise communicable diseases. The one danger- 

 ous feature of such diseases, their connnnnicabtlity, is the best guarantee that they can 

 be prevented, and imposes a duty which no people nor government can ignore with- 

 out proving recreant to their trust, and perpetrating a crime against the future heirs 

 of their national inheritance. 



Dr. Arthur Y. Wadgynear, Castroville, Medina County, Texas, 

 says : 



Our horses are, in general, very healthy, and I have noticed only two prevalent 

 diseases, viz : bots and distemper. The bots are produced by two different insects, 

 Gastro})hihi8 and Chrysops metnllicus, which deposit their eggs on the hair of the horse, 

 on the breast and foie legs mainly, and are bitten oft' and swallowed by the animal. 

 They are carried into the stomach, where they remain until the following spring, 

 when, having attained their full size as larviij, they are carried along the intestines 

 and evacuated. The symptoms of a horse afflicted with the bots are uneasiness and 

 apparent pain in the bowels. Tlie animal falls to the grouud, starts up again sud- 



