HANDLING OF COMPLICATIONS 411 



This is a very important point, as it is tlie amount of serum 

 which is absorbed and carried to other parts of the body that does 

 the good, and not the amount which is injected. We might inject 

 a gallon of serum, and it would do no good if it is not taken up 

 by the blood and the lymph and carried to other parts of the body. 



The battleground between the germs of cholera and the germ 

 destroyers of the serum is the blood, and it is absolutely necessary 

 that we get as large an amount of the serum absorbed into the 

 blood-stream as possible. The turning of the animals into a pas- 

 ture where they will have to rustle quite a little in order to satisfy 

 their appetites will very much increase the amount of the serum 

 that will be absorbed, and will also make the time necessary for 

 this absorbtion to take place very much shorter than it would be 

 if the animals are allowed to lie around in a close feed lot and freely 

 slopped. 



Very little other food should be allowed during the first few 

 days after the giving of the treatment. Plenty of water should 

 be supplied, and this water should be clean and fresh, and should 

 not simply be some mud-hole or old stagnant pond out of which the 

 animal is forced to drink. A small amount of fresh slop may be 

 given, but no sour swill should be allowed during this time. Dirty, 

 sour, decomposed swill is bad enough as a food at any time, but 

 especially is it liable to do harm at this time, in that it weakens 

 the defenses of the body and increases the work which it is neces- 

 sary for the serum to do in order to save the life of the animal. 



I have frequently seen cases where hogs were given the serum 

 alone or the serum-simultaneous treatment, and then turned into 

 an old hog lot, in the middle of which was located a dirty mud-hole 

 known as a hog wallow. The animals were allowed to wallow and 

 burrow in this dirty, filthy mud, and then it was wondered at why 

 a large amount of abscesses developed later on. No serum, no 

 matter how clean it may be, can prevent the formation of abscesses 

 when used under such conditions as these. 



Keep the animals away from these hog wallows at least for a 

 week following the use of the injection treatment, no matter which 

 form you use. It is by carrying in of the pus-forming germs with 

 dirt and mud that these abscesses are started in a large number of 

 cases. 



