438 DISEASES OF SWINE 



ous condition. There were a number of the shoats in which 

 unmistakable symptoms of hog-cholera had already developed. 

 They were droopy, did not care for food, and a few of them had 

 already started a characteristic diarrhea. Evidences of something 

 wrong with the herd had been noticed for three or four days pre- 

 vious to the visit of the United States officials. Only a few hours 

 before the arrival of the bureau veterinarians 2 of the animals 

 had died. 



Postmortem examination of the hogs which had recently died 

 was made, and typical lesions of hog-cholera were found, including 

 enlarged lymph-glands, engorged spleen, turkey-egg spots in the 

 kidneys, ulcerations in the bowel and around the ileocecal valve, 

 and enlargement and congestion of the liver. 



This herd was composed of two lots. The shoats ran in one 

 pen and the sows were kept in a separate feed lot. The disease had 

 first made its appearance among the shoats, and all of them had 

 already been thoroughly exposed to the disease, as the sick animals 

 had been in these pens for the past four days, and 2 had already 

 died in this lot. The disease had not yet made its appearance 

 among the old sows, but their close proximity to the infected 

 shoats made it very probable that the infection would soon be 

 carried to them. 



Twenty-nine shoats were selected for injection. All of these 

 had been thoroughly exposed to the disease, and many of them 

 were undoubtedly well along in the period of incubation at the time 

 of treatment. Each of these animals received an injection of 20 

 c.c. of serum. Fourteen animals were left untreated. Of these, 

 4 showed no apparent symptoms of disease whatever; the other 

 10 were more or less visibly affected. 



In handling the 14 old sows, 11 of them were given an in- 

 jection of 30 c.c. of serum, and the remaining 3 received 30 c.c. 

 of serum plus 1 c.c. of virulent blood. Later — on October 23d 

 — these sows were turned into the same feed lot with the sick 

 shoats. 



The results of this experiment are quite interesting. Here we 

 have the use of the serum in a herd of shoats which were already 

 in a badly diseased condition, and in which its use would appear 

 to be almost hopeless. These hogs had been so thoroughly ex- 



