S^yiNE FOR THE HOME J^IARKET. 263 



county, and up and down the river, has been scarlet fever, — 

 as true scarlet fever as any human being ever had. My first 

 experience was two years ago. I had among my hogs eight 

 or ten shoats that were four or five months old. I had a 

 very choice breeding sow, a thoroughbred Yorkshire, which 

 is my favorite breed. She was the handsomest animal of 

 the hog family that I ever saw. She was then eight months 

 old, and I was keeping her to breed from the coming spring. 

 My shoats had a warm, dry pen, they had a run out into 

 l)erh:ips an eighth of an acre of grass, and they had for 

 fed some house swill and ))ran, and small potatoes boiled 

 up and mixed in a barrel with a little salt. Those little 

 shoats died olf one after the other, the weakest ones first. 

 I did not pay particular attention to it ; I thought it was 

 inevitable, and I must endure it. Finally I sequestered the 

 last two with this eight months' old sow in a warm, well- 

 ventilated pen, with a dirt bottom ; that is why I put them 

 in there. The two young shoats died, one after the other. 

 The sow was evidently not entirely well ; she ate, but was a 

 little sluggish. One night she took her feed and the next 

 morning was dead. Her sides and breast were bright scarlet. 

 She was as white as snow before, with very little hair, and 

 of course this appearance was very marked. I determined 

 to have a diagnosis of this case, and called Dr. Gardner, 

 who, as you know, was a thoroughly educated veterinary 

 surgeon. He oponod her and found every organ in that pig 

 in a sound and perfectly healthy condition until he came up 

 to the throat, which was filled with inflammation. It was 

 asphyxia, as we terra it in the human being. She died of 

 suffocation from scarlet fever. 



THere were other cases near me. A neisfbhor of mine had 

 a lot of pigs that he kept in a good, dry condition, not under 

 a barn. Some of his pigs died, and as he did not want to 

 bother with the rest of them, he gave them away, four or five, 

 to a Dutchman. These pigs were six or eight weeks old. The 

 Dutchman took them home and took care of them ; of course 

 he handled them some, and about ten days afterwards he was 

 taken sick. On his hand had been a little pimple which he 

 had irritated until it bled and became raw. From that began 

 a suffusion of red, which extended over his whole body ; he 



