246 DISEASES OF SWINE 



cholera. Every cholera-infected farm should be properly branded 

 with a quarantine flag, and owners of swine warned to keep off the 

 premises. Every dead carcass should immediately be disposed of 

 by burning, and the premises thoroughly cleaned up and disinfected 

 at the end of the outbreak. It is by such methods as these that 

 doctors of human medicine are driving the pestilences and plagues 

 of former centuries off the face of the earth, and it is by such meth- 

 ods as these that we must meet and cope with this dread disease 

 of hogs, which is threatening to wipe out the hog-raising industry 

 of the United States. 



Strict methods of quarantine may mean a httle inconvenience 

 for a few weeks to the owners of infected farms, and may not ap- 

 pear to them to be justified, but it is an absolute duty that they 

 owe to their neighbors, just as much as if one of the members 

 of their family was suffering from small-pox, Asiatic cholera, or 

 some other deadly catching disease. In the final summing up 

 the little inconvenience suffered will more than be repaid by the 

 general benefit not only to the farmer so unfortunate as to have 

 his herd stricken, but to the general public as well. 



The Turkey Buzzard. — When it comes to scattering cholera 

 over a large district there is one agency that, with the help of 

 carelessness in the matter of proper disposal of dead carcasses, 

 can accomplish more harm in a few weeks than any other single 

 agency. This is the common turkey buzzard. 



The buzzards are widely distributed all over the hog-cholera 

 belt, and are quickly attracted by any kind of dead animal which 

 may be exposed where they can conveniently attack it. As has 

 been already stated in previous pages, the buzzard has a very 

 marked power of locating dead animal carcasses, and is provided 

 with a powerful pair of wings. These two faculties enable him 

 to travel frequently for hundreds of miles in order to reach a new 

 feeding ground. 



In many states the buzzard has been protected by law for many 

 years under the wrong impression that he was of great benefit to 

 the public in aiding in the disposition of dead refuse. That this 

 law is a wise one is hardly in harmony with our present knowledge 

 of the heavy losses that are traceable to the buzzard as the source 

 of spreading the disease. Some states, notably Tennessee, have 



