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Parliamentary Publications. 



which was isolated by Schiitz. In the United States of 

 America an organism said to be identical with the German 

 Schweineseuche bacterium has been cultivated from pneu- 

 monic lesions in the pig. 



The Committee, as the result of the observations and 

 experiments on this head, have arrived at the conclusion that 

 the pneumonia which is occasionally encountered as an 

 independent disease of the pig, or in association with swine 

 fever, is not ascribable to contagion, but to the presence of 

 organisms that are generally saprophytic in their mode of 

 life, and which only in particular circumstances (such as 

 lowered vitality and diminished resistance on the part of the 

 pig) are able to multiply in the air passages and lung tissue 

 and thus induce pneumonia. It appears to the Committee 

 that in this country pneumonia of the pig is sporadic and not 

 contagious or epizootic. 



Swine Erysipelas. 



This disease was at one time confounded with sv/ine fever, 

 but it has for some years been known that the two affections 

 are perfectly distinct. Swine erysipelas is easily diagnosed 

 after death, owing to the fact that it is caused by a bacillus 

 which has very distinctive morphological and cultural 

 characters. In France, Germany, and other continental 

 States the disease is more or less prevalent in the epizootic 

 form, and is held to be responsible for a very serious mortality 

 among pigs. Foreign authors agree in describing it as a 

 highly contagious and infectious disease which is readily 

 spread either by direct contact between diseased and healthy 

 pigs, or by such indirect means as the clothes or hands of 

 butchers, pig"-dealers, or other persons who have been in 

 contact with diseased pigs. 



The investigations of the Committee have shown that swine 

 erysipelas is a widely distributed disease in the United 

 Kingdom, but during the period covered by their inquiry the 

 Committee have not been able to discover any outbreak of 

 the disease in the acute or epizootic form. All the cases 

 which have been brought under their notice have been of the 

 chronic form associated with disease of the cardiac valves, 

 and the particulars obtained regarding these cases do not 



