DESOUAMATION OF THE SKIN. 143 



of the hinder extremities, and the formation of blackish pustules 

 under the tongue : eventually the skin usually comes off in patches. 

 The measles in swine is seldom fatal, and will gradually yield to 

 the simplest cooling treatment, or even to mere attention to diet, 

 temperature, and ventilation. Didyinus tells us that Democrates 

 prescribed bruised asphodile roots to be mingled with the food given 

 to hogs, as an excellent remedy for this disease. It sadly injures the 

 quality of the meat, rendering it insipid, flabby, pale, and indisposed 

 to take the salt. We should say that the flesh of measly pigs is posi- 

 tively unwholesome, although, perhaps, there are no cases on record 

 in which it is proved that bad effects have resulted from the use of it. 

 The following was a remedy for this disorder used by the ancients : 

 *'A hog having measles must be put in a sty and kept there three 

 days and nights without food. Then take five or six apples, pick 

 out the cores and fill up the holes thus made with flour of brimstone ; 

 stop up the holes and cast in the apples to the measly hog. Give 

 him first one or two, then one or two more, and then, as being hun- 

 gry he will eat them, give him all. Let him have nothing more to 

 eat until the next day, and then serve him so again. Thus use him 

 for five or six days, and he Avill become as well and as wholesome 

 as ever. 1 ' In our opinion it is one very likely to be beneficial. 



It yet remains to be discovered whether measles in swine is an 

 epidemic, like that disorder in the human being, or whether it is 

 hereditary, or whether, as many suppose, it arises from the develop- 

 ment and presence of a variety of the cysticercus. 

 '".," T-:-^. /.V-w ;> 



DESQUAMATION OF THE SKIN. 



The following singular case, communicated to The Veterinarian, 

 by Mr. J. Sherwood, of Sittingbourn, appears to us not unworthy 

 of record here. 



"A few weeks ago the skin became hard on either side about nine 

 or ten inches from the spine, and afterwards kept gradually separat- 

 ing towards the centre of the spine from the shoulder to the insertion 

 of the tail. The bailiff cut off portions from time to time of the 

 weight of nearly 10 Ibs. in order to make the load with which the 

 animal was encumbered the lighter, until the last week, when the 

 hog lay down, and after taking his rest with his brethren (for he fed 

 and looked as well as the rest, with the exception of the load on his 

 back) he got up and left the substance behind him. It consisted of 

 the entire skin so far as it had sloughed, with about two inches of 

 adeps adhering to it in the middle, getting gradually thinner towards 

 the sides, and weighing 20 Ibs., which, added to the portions before 

 removed, made a total of 30 Ibs. The hog is now computed to 

 weigh 400 Ibs. He had not any medicine administered, as he did 

 well the whole of the time." 



