AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 261 



contact can come in contact with other hogs until three or four 

 weeks have passed and they show no signs of sickness. This 

 simple precaution would have prevented many outbreaks. The 

 expense is so slight that no one is justified in endangering his own 

 hogs and perhaps the hogs of his neighbors by neglecting it. 



Prevalent as Hog Cholera is, every sick hog is not affected with 

 it. In making a diagnosis the history of the case is very impor- 

 tant. It is hardly possible for one or two out of a number of 

 hogs that are kept together to have Hog Cholera without others 

 soon becoming affected. When all the hogs in a pen are taken 

 suddenly sick and it is not possible to trace any connection 

 between them and some outbreak of Hog Cholera, it is well to 

 consider whether their condition is not due to the feed or care 

 they are getting. There is no evidence to show that Hog Cholera 

 ever -develops in a place where it has not been brought by affected 

 hogs, or some of the diseased products of affected hogs. And 

 such a thing as a permanently infected locality is probably 

 unknown, although the Hog Cholera bacilli will live and multiply 

 in the waste food and wet places about the pens where sick hogs 

 are kept, and will even live in dry earth for two or three months 

 sometimes. 



The most prominent symptoms of Hog Cholera are a loss of 

 appetite, considerable elevation of temperature, constipation fol- 

 lowed before death by very fluid discharges. In some acute 

 cases there is little diarrhoea before death ; in other cases it is a 

 marked symptom for some days. Death may occur within two or 

 three days of the time the first symptoms are noticed, or it may 

 occur after three or four weeks. Usually the skin on the under 

 side of the neck, thorax, abdomen and on the inner side of the 

 thigh presents a bright red appearance before the death of the 

 animal. After death the principal lesions are found in the large 

 intestines, which are studded with what Dr. Salmon terms ulcers. 

 In the cases that I have seen, these "ulcers," instead of exhibiting 

 a loss of substance, are actually thicker than the surrounding tis- 

 sue. They vary in size from a mere speck to nearly an inch in 

 diameter. The larger ones have a thicker outer ring and a 

 depressed center and are usually nearly black in color. Their 

 border is sharply defined and they can often be easily removed, 

 leaving a depression that extends into or completely through the 

 muscular coats of the intestines. These "ulcers" are usually the 

 most abundant in the caecum about the ilio-C£ecal valve. The 



