30 On Diseases of Swine, 



from corrupted blood, arising from lying wet : through 

 filthy rotten litter and want of meat." My hogs lay dry, 

 they are never in want of meat, and have fresh litter 

 given to them when the pens are cleaned out : which 

 they are usually three times a week. It should be ob- 

 served that my largest or oldest hogs have never been 

 attacked by this disorder : it is confined to those of 

 middle size, say pigs from eight to ten or eleven 

 months old. 



In the fall of 1807, a disorder broke out among the 

 larger hogs ; it was not confined to my pens alone, but 

 it was an epidemic which raged among the swine 

 throughout this part of the country, and it progressed so 

 rapidly among mine, that I expected at one time to have 

 lost nearly the whole of them : the people in the neigh- 

 bourhood called the disorder the sore throat, — A hog 

 would come up to the trough, eat, apparently in good 

 health, and in ten minutes after, be dead : and those 

 which were attacked were the finest hogs in the pen : 

 their food was good and they had plenty of running wa- 

 ter to wallow in, (a thing absolutely necessary in the 

 summer season,) — I had several of them opened, but 

 did not discover any particular cause for such a sudden 

 exit^ except a trifling swelling in the wind pipe and black 

 pustules on the tongue. — A friend and neighbour sent 

 me a late volume of the Museum Rusticum and of the 

 Farmers Magazine ; in the latter, vol. 3, page 105, I 

 found the disorder tolerably well described as far as te 

 appearance in the hogs I opened : but they call it measles, 

 which I am certain was not the disorder ; as I found 

 however my old medicine for the sore throat : — bleeding 

 and nitre ; — and a diet of sweet milk, had no good effect, 



