308 DISEASES OF SWINE 



the state should be invoked and fines imposed where occasion 

 demands. 



Until a very short time ago the measures just mentioned were 

 the only weapons with which we had been armed in our fight against 

 cholera. Unquestionably, these sanitary measures have been 

 very much neglected, as otherwise the disease would never have 

 been able to gain the firm foothold that it now has in all parts 

 of the United States. In the early days of the appearance of 

 cholera down in the Ohio River Valley, if an energetic campaign 

 against the disease had been carried on, hog-cholera could have 

 easily been entirely wiped out within a very short time. 



It is a sad page in the history of the hog-raising industry of the 

 United States that the enormous danger which threatened was not 

 recognized at that time, and as a result, no systematic effort at 

 stamping out of the disease was made. Spreading with the speed 

 of a prairie fire, as is always the case when a disease of this nature 

 is introduced into new lands, cholera soon became firmly implanted 

 upon American soil, and is now scattered from one end of the hog- 

 raising belt to the other. Every year has seen more numerous and 

 more severe outbreaks of the disease, and the severity of the out- 

 breaks does not seem to decrease in the least. As a result the dis- 

 ease has become, indeed, a thing of terror to the hog raisers of the 

 country, and large numbers have been entirely forced out of the 

 hog-producing industry just on account of the fear they have of an 

 outbreak of this disease about midsummer in their herds. At this 

 time the animals usually represent a considerable investment in 

 grain and pasture consumed, and are not in a condition to market 

 with any profit. On this account the loss at this season of the year 

 totals up into enormous figures. 



Not only has this disease stricken terror into the hog-producing 

 industry, but also indirectly it has been the means of greatly reduc- 

 ing the cattle production of the country. Not that the disease is 

 transmissible to cattle, but in our Central States, where cattle are 

 fattened largely upon corn, they cannot be profitably handled 

 unless a drove of hogs are fed at the same time in order to get the 

 greatest possible returns for the grain consumed, a large portion of 

 which passes through the intestines of the cattle without being made 

 use of as food. The great danger of severe outbreaks of cholera 



