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PARLIAMENTARY PUBLICATIONS. 



[June 1896. 



now enables them to report definitely on certain important points 

 which, at the commencement of the inquiry, were still undecided. 



In accordance with the instruction referring to the work of 

 foreign investigators on the subject of swine fever, the Com- 

 mittee have consulted all the available literature, and have been 

 in correspondence with some of the chief experts who have 

 devoted themselves to the study of the contagious fevers of the 



P^' ..... 



A digest of the views of different investigators is contained in 



the appendix to the Report. The Committee cannot escape the 

 conviction that the opinions expressed in reference to the 

 pathology and bacteriology of swine fever are so divergent that 

 it is hopeless to attempt to reconcile them. They therefore 

 deemed it expedient to act independently. 



The Committee desire in the first place to state their belief 

 that there is no room for the slightest doubt that the sole cause 

 of swine fever is the introduction into the animal system of the 

 specific organism derived from a previous case of the disease. 



Swine fever does not, and cannot, arise under any conditions 

 which exclude the specific virus ; in other words, it is not a 

 sporadic disease, but one of the true contagia, being in this 

 respect in the same category as small-pox, cattle-plague, and 

 other contagious diseases of man and animals. 



Swine fever may be defined as a contagious and infectious 

 disease of the pig associated with a necrotic and ulcerative con- 

 dition of the mucous membrane of the intestine, the morbid 

 condition being nearly always most marked in the large 

 intestine. 



The disease of the lungs which occasionally accompanies the 

 disease in the intestine is either collapse or pneumonia. It is 

 necessary, however, to observe that in none of the experiments 

 performed for the Committee was pneumonia produced either 

 by inoculation with pure cultivations of the micro-organism, or 

 by feeding with the natural material obtained from animals 

 suffering from swine fever. 



Some very important information in regard to the obscure 

 form of swine fever was obtained by the Committee from the 

 examination of swine which had been isolated for a period of 

 two months on infected premises. At the end of that time thev 

 had been certified by a veterinary surgeon to be free from swine 

 fever, and would in the ordinary course have been released. In 

 several of these instances, instead of being released, the swine 

 were, at the request of the Committee, slaughtered, and the 

 organs sent for examination. In each set of specimens charac- 

 teristic lesions of swine fever were detected. 



It was found that animals placed in contact with the diseased 

 swine, or in the sties which had been occupied by them, became 

 affected with a similar type of slowly progressive disease. On 

 post-mortem examination of all the original cases the remarkable 

 feature was the great disproportion between the very advanced 



