HANDLING OF COMPLICATIONS 409 



alone, using double the usual dose for animals of the same size 

 and weight. By this means you may be able to cut down the 

 losses to a large extent, and save even 50 per cent, or more of the 

 animals that would otherwise have died. 



Treatment of Abscesses. — It is not by any means rare, even 

 under the very best of care in giving the injection of serum, to 

 have a few abscesses develop at the point where the serum was 

 injected. The placing of a large amount of foreign material into 

 the tissues tears them apart more or less, and sets up a reaction 

 which is very favorable to the development of abscesses. Then, 

 the hog is an animal that is kept under very poor sanitary condi- 

 tions in most cases, and it is unusual if a considerable amount 

 of dirt does not get into the wound left by the needle puncture. 

 These are all conditions which favor the development of an ab- 

 scess at this point. 



When these abscesses do develop, it is proper that we handle 

 them in a scientific and correct manner. Do not allow the ab- 

 scess to run its own course, rupture, and scatter pus all over the 

 feed lot. It is also a poor practice to slip up behind the animal 

 while he is feeding, stick a knife into the abscess, and allow pus 

 to drain all over the hog yards. 



Dr. Balcher, of Newcastle, Indiana, reports a very interesting 

 and instructive case of this kind, in which a sow suckling a litter 

 of pigs developed an abscess in the ham after the injection of 

 serum. The owner, at slopping time, slipped up behind the ani- 

 mal and, while she was eating, stuck a knife-blade into the swollen 

 abscess, and made a large opening from which the pus drained 

 very freely. The animal in walking about scattered the pus all 

 over the feed lot. The pigs of this litter as well as those sucking 

 other sows in the same feed lot were soon rooting around in this 

 pus. 



As a result, they carried these abscess-forming germs in their 

 mouths to the teats of the mothers, and in a few days nearly every 

 sow in the feed lot had a large number of abscesses of the mammary 

 glands. 



In case an abscess develops, have the animal caught and held 

 as for administration of serum. Take a clean knife that has been 

 sterilized by boiling, and make a good deep opening into the most 



