DISEASES OF THE HOG, 177 



appetite and the animal appearing stupid, and as 

 it becomes more pronounced the animal will stag- 

 ger and have the appearance of being giddy with a 

 wild expression of the eyes; there is often a twitch- 

 ing of the eyelids, sometimes so much so that it 

 may completely close them for a moment, then ex- 

 tend them wide open and so on. At this stage of 

 the disease the pulse is full and hard and the 

 breathing slow; the animal soon becomes very rest- 

 less and at times will tear substances with its 

 teeth, and sooner or later delirium sets in, the pulse 

 is then full, hard and fast and may be irregular; 

 the breathing is hurried, the skin hot and dry, vom- 

 iting is very characteristic of this disease, although 

 I have seen cases where vomiting did not occur. 

 The delirium soon gives way to stupor then to 

 coma, but this is not so common in the pig as in 

 man (exhaustion with convulsion.) We cannot 

 confine the animal in its wild delirious condition 

 and on this account it soon exhausts itself and dies. 

 It is seldom that a pig affected w ith this complaint 

 will live more than twenty-four to thirty-six hours. 

 I was called to examine a number of pigs which 

 were supposed to be affected with hydrophobia, 

 but which proved to be inflammation of the brain 

 caused by a sudden change of food. The animals 

 had been fed on dry corn in the ear for a length of 

 time without sufficient water and w^ere changed to 

 green corn and corn stalks and in three days after 

 eight of them were affected, I could find no other 

 cause. All the well ones were put back on the dry 

 food and none of them were affected. On the sec- 



