TREATMENT OF CHOLERA 215 



supplied them if they are to do well. This appUes to the hog as 

 well as to the other animals, and even man. If you were to live 

 upon an exclusively meat diet for several weeks, your stomach and 

 bowels would soon show the effects of the lack of proper variety in 

 food. An excellent example of this is often seen in sailors who are 

 away from land for several months and have no fresh food of any 

 kind. Scurvy breaks out in severe form, and large numbers of 

 them frequently die. This is, in effect, practically what many 

 farmers do with their hogs. 



You will often see a farmer who is crowding his animals with a 

 strictly corn diet, and the poor hog gets nothing else day after day 

 but corn. Corn is an excellent food; of this there can be no doubt, 

 and hogs usually do well on it; but, if given exclusively, and with 

 no other food to form a variety, it will invariably lead to trouble. 

 Indigestion, diarrhea, constipation, loss of appetite, and other di- 

 gestive disturbances are certain to develop. 



These, in themselves, are not sufficient usually to produce the 

 death of the animal, but they do prepare the field for the sowing of 

 the seed of cholera infection, and if the animal becomes infected 

 it is in a very poor condition to fight the disease, and, as a result, 

 cholera when it breaks out in these herds runs a very rapid and 

 exceedingly fatal course. 



Especially use care when commencing to feed some unusual 

 food. As, for instance, when starting to feed green corn in the 

 fall. We have practically all of us seen and experienced the effects 

 on our own body, and especially our stomach and bowels, of over- 

 eating with some green food, such as green corn, green apples, 

 etc. The stomach of the hog is not greatly different from our own, 

 and the results are very much the same when excess is practised. 

 Diarrhea, colic, and indigestion are sure to follow if carelessness 

 is not avoided in this respect. Every case of indigestion invites 

 cholera to come in and take possession, and cholera is one of those 

 diseases which seldom needs a second invitation. 



In northwestern Iowa a few years ago I had occasion to see 

 some severe losses which were brought about in this way. 



One case that I remember well had about the following history: 

 The farmer, a large stock raiser, had a large herd of hogs which 

 had been running for several weeks on a timber pasture and had 



