PREDISPOSING CAUSES 111 



is dragged out to the hog lot and left for the hogs to devour. The 

 eating of the diseased meat in itself is sufficiently dangerous, and 

 often results in the development of cholera when the carcass is 

 that of a hog, but there are many other elements of danger con- 

 nected with this practice that are usually entirely overlooked. 



Wherever a dead animal carcass is exposed, there will buzzards 

 and carrion crows collect to participate in the feast. These birds 

 of prey will come for miles when they scent a feast of this kind. 

 Often they come on to your premises from a similar feast miles 

 away on the carcass of animals which have died of hog-cholera, 

 and bring with them on their talons the remains of cholera-infected 

 tissue, which are scattered in the feed lots to be eaten by the 

 healthy animals there, with the invariable result that within ten 

 to fifteen days an outbreak of cholera develops. 



It is sometimes exceedingly hard to get the hog owner to see 

 how his hogs can possibly become infected with hog-cholera from 

 eating the carcass of a dead horse or a dead cow. The ox or the 

 horse do not have cholera, and so could not contain the germs of 

 hog-cholera. Hence, how could the hog possibly contract cholera 

 from eating the carcass of these animals? This is the question 

 they invariably ask. Now, all this is very true. Cows and horses 

 and sheep do not have cholera, but it must be remembered that 

 buzzards and crows will be attracted by a dead horse, a dead cow, 

 or a dead sheep just as quickly as they will by a dead hog, and they 

 are just as likely to have come directly from hog-cholera-infected 

 premises a few hours before, and bring with them the virus of the 

 disease, which they scatter over the premises. In this way healthy 

 hogs are attacked and cholera breaks out. 



Buzzards and Crows. — There can be no reasonable question but 

 what this is the most common single method of introducing cholera 

 into new districts. Buzzards and crows will often come from as far 

 as one hundred miles to feast upon an exposed animal carcass, and 

 bring with them the germs of hog-cholera. This is the most 

 frequent explanation for the appearance of cholera in new districts 

 where there seems to be no possible good reason why the disease 

 should have appeared there. 



It is a fact frequently noticed by the farmer that a few weeks 

 after an outbreak of chicken-cholera on the farm it is followed by 



