Cholera Suis, Hog Cholera, etc. 63 



Therapeutic Treatment. With state, county or municipal 

 measures for the extinction of hog cholera, treatment is to be con- 

 demned, as calculated to encrease and spread the infection. But 

 until the states can be educated out of the past wasteful system, 

 into economical measures of extinction, the swine breeders are 

 entitled to whatever salvage they can secure through therapeutics. 

 For acute cases there is no hope. For the chronic a clean, dry, 

 comfortable pen, well disinfected, and a moderate diet of varied 

 and laxative food are essential. Wheat, bran or middlings, with 

 ■corn, oat, barley or linseed meal may be allowed in form of a 

 mash. A little green vegetable food may be added. Medicinal 

 agents may be used to meet special indications, but when a whole 

 herd must be treated at once, antiseptics and febrifuges have ap- 

 parently proved the most generally helpful. The Bureau of 

 Animal Industry especially recommends the following : Wood 

 charcoal, sulphur, sodium sulphate and antimony sulphide, of 

 each I lb. ; sodium chloride, bicarbonate and hyposulphite, of 

 each 2 lbs. ; mix thoroughly and add to each feed in ratio with 

 the size of the patient. In suitable cases, this is said to improve 

 the appetite and contribute much to convalescence. Modifications 

 "will readily suggest themselves to meet individual conditions and 

 •different stages of the disease— antithermics, eliminants, calma- 

 tives, stimulants, tonics, etc. 



Serum Therapy. This has been especially exploited and ad- 

 vocated in America by De Schweinitz of the Bureau of Animal 

 Industry, and Dr. Peters of I^incoln, Neb. In Europe, Perroncito 

 ias prepared an antitoxin. The serum is produced in the body of 

 the cow or other animal which is inoculated repeatedly with gradu- 

 ally encreasing doses of living hog cholera cultures and with solu- 

 tions of the bacilli and their products, for a period of eight months, 

 or until no reaction takes place from large doses, and the blood 

 serum added to cultures of hog cholera bacilli causes ' agglutina- 

 tion of the latter. The serum is further tested as to its power of 

 -preserving Guinea pigs inoculated with a lethal dose of live hog 

 cholera cultures. After separation from the blood the serum is 

 concentrated until it reaches a standard at which 10 cc. proves 

 curative to a pig of 40 to* 60 lbs. weight. 



It proves most successful in animals in which the subacute or 

 chronic form of the disease has just begun. One injection only 



