PREDISPOSING CAUSES 107 



especially so in the summer months. This water should be equally 

 pure for both man and beast. Water intended for the swine herd 

 should be fresh, clean, and pure, and should be provided in clean, 

 sanitary troughs, and not pumped into some mud-hole. 



Water not only serves a useful purpose, and fills an absolute 

 necessity in the metabolism of the animal's body, but a plentiful 

 supply of clear, fresh water also serves to keep the body well 

 washed out internally and free from disease-producing germs. 

 A plentiful supply of pure water, both internally and externally, is 

 an all-important essential in the promotion of health in either man 

 or beast. 



On many farms the water-supply for the animals, including 

 hogs as well as cattle, is derived from some shallow stream which 

 courses through the pasture or feed lot. While this is a very con- 

 venient source of supply, and eliminates the necessity for pumping, 

 it is indeed not advisable. 



In nearly all such cases this same stream runs through some 

 other hog lot, or large numbers of them, higher up in its course, and 

 receives the drainage from hundreds of hog pastures located on its 

 banks. Let an outbreak of cholera occur on any of these farms 

 higher up along the course of the stream, and it can be very readily 

 seen what the outcome will be. The feces, urine, and other dis- 

 charges of the sick animals containing the hog-cholera virus are 

 washed into the stream, and by it carried along down its course to 

 infect the herds for miles and miles. 



Many epidemics of cholera can be traced in this manner from 

 their source for miles along the water-course, herd after herd be- 

 coming infected by drinking of and bathing in the water of the 

 polluted stream. Hogs when affected with cholera are usually 

 burning up with fever and thirst, and will seek to relieve their 

 symptoms by wallowing in water, and when a running stream 

 passes through the hog lot they will almost invariably seek it, and 

 lie down in the cooling water to gain relief from thirst and fever. 

 It accordingly happens that they pass their highly infected dis- 

 charges directly into the stream, from whence they are carried 

 merrily along by the running waters to infect hundreds of other 

 animals further along the course of the stream. Only too often 

 the infected animals die in the stream or in close proximity to its 



