TREATMENT OF CHOLERA 219 



cleaned out from one end of the month to another, and during hot 

 weather become a foul-smeUing breeding place for flies, and a 

 nuisance to all who have to come in contact with them. 



The contents of this barrel are dipped out with an equally 

 dirty bucket at feeding time, and fed to the animals in long wide 

 troughs, in which the animal is able to get his feet as well as his 

 nose. As a result, this food, which is already unspeakably filthy, 

 is further contaminated by admixture with manure and dirt from 

 the feet of the animal. You cannot expect man or beast to remain 

 well on such food as this. It is utterly impossible; and while the 

 hog, through long years of abuse, has developed a marked resist- 

 ance to disease, there is a Umit even to what a hog can stand, and 

 large numbers of them perish every year as a result of such insani- 

 tary feeding conditions as those just described. This is especially 

 the case with young pigs, who develop scours, thumps, and other 

 similar diseases and die in a few days. The older animals have 

 gotten more used to such feeding conditions, and may be able to 

 weather through if cholera does not make its appearance. If it 

 does, these herds are among the first to suffer, and the disease usu- 

 ally sweeps the hog lot clean before it ends its course. Animals 

 with resistance so lowered by this kind of feeding cannot put up a 

 fight against disease and filth at the same time, and the result is a 

 victory for disease, death for the animal, and financial loss for the 

 farmer, who is usually ready to blame his luck. 



I know of a large feeder in western Indiana who has not had 

 cholera on his premises for the past fifteen years, although the 

 disease is all around him every year. His neighbors attribute it 

 to his luck, saying that he is the luckiest man they have ever seen. 

 It is not a matter of luck at all, however, as I became firmly con- 

 vinced after a careful examination of his methods. His animals 

 are allowed plenty of range space in which to exercise. They are 

 not crowded together in filthy feed lots, where they are forced to 

 eat their own discharges with their food. They have Ught, airy 

 sleeping quarters, so arranged that overcrowding is impossible. 

 They are fed with a well-balanced ration, which is always given to 

 them clean and on clean feeding floors, or properly constructed 

 troughs, so constructed that the hog can get his nose into the trough, 

 but not his feet. Every precaution is taken to prevent infection 



