204 Annual Report for 1907 of Royal Veterinary College. 
a few years be made on the prevalence of glanders, and it 
is even permissible to hope that by their means the disease 
will eventually share the fate of i-abies, pleuro-pneumonia, and 
foot-and-mouth disease, and be entirely eradicated from this 
country. 
Swine Fever. 
■ ' The following Table shows the number of outbreaks of 
this disease for the past six years : — ' 
Year 
Outbreaks 
Tear 
Outbreaks 
1902 
1,688' 
1 
1905 
817 
... 
1903 
1,478 
1.906 
1,280 
1904 
1,196 
1907 - 
2,336 
These figures speak for themselves. They show that 
during the past year swine fever has been nearly three times 
as prevalent as it was in 1905, and as a matter of fact 
we appear to be no nearer the extermination of the disease 
than we were ten years ago (1897, when there were 2,155 
outbreaks). During the five years 1901-1905 the operations 
of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries reduced the 
annual outbreaks from 3,140 to 817, and it appeared probable 
that the measures which had been so far effectual would, if 
persevered with, actually succeed in stamping out the disease. 
It must be confessed that any such prospect now appears 
remote. That there are great difficulties in the way of ex- 
terminating swine fever is obvious to any'one acquarnted with 
the characters of the disease, but all these difficulties were 
in existence in the period 1901-1905, when the number of 
outbreaks was being steadily reduced. It may be taken as 
certain that no alteration in the character of the disease has 
recently taken place, and the cause of the recrudescence of 
the disease during the last two years must be sought for 
either in some change in the regulations prescribed by the 
Board or in the attitude of the owners of swine. In previous 
Reports it has been suggested that the earlier success of the 
Board was due to the regulations having been at that time 
drafted on what may be called cattle-plague lines, and that, 
provided the object in view was to stamp out the disease, 
it was a mistake to lessen the stringency of the measures 
then in force. In particular, it appeared to be unwise just 
at the time when the Board seemed to be getting the upper 
hand of the disease, to modify the slaughtering-out method, 
and to rely on isolation of suspected pigs for bringing out- 
breaks to an end or preventing the spread of the disease. 
The past year’s experience only tends to confirm these views. 
