264 
SCROFULOUS DISEASE IN PIGS. 
frequent bronchitis, rheumatic pains, &c., all which causes 
of suffering act as proximate, or remote causes in determining 
the approach of scrofulous disease, or should it exist already, 
in hastening its progress. The neighbourhood of marshy 
puddles, or ponds, has likewise an influence, and especially 
when pigs are turned out on them in cold weather, fasting, 
to seek their living. 
An adult hog w ho had acquired strength and vital existence, 
W'hose lungs readily burnt the carbon of the blood, did not 
die. What then do we see in the midst of these causes? 
A sow who has ten pigs at a farrow 7 , connects herself in the 
course of consanguinity, and her farrow now becomes reduced 
to three or four, and so in place of being strong and vigor- 
ous, we behold them weak and rickety. They remain low 
in condition, and carry in themselves the seeds of a premature 
death. When we come to wean them, we find that their 
organs are not capable of extracting nutritive principles; 
hence the cold affects them, and they generate phlegmatics. 
The blood is altered in its course, and the particles which 
it exhales for the purpose of nutrition, are changed. Instead 
of nourishing organs, they accumulate, and cause degenera- 
tion. This is the phenomenon w 7 hich gives rise to tubercles 
aud other heterologous tissues, whose presence constitutes 
scrofulous disease. 
Treatment . — We can understand, when animals become 
attacked in numbers w ith this disease, that individual treat- 
ment becomes impracticable. We must, then, apply to mea- 
sures wdiich resist and extinguish causes. 
We must, by constant renew al of males, prevent the esta- 
blishment of consanguinity, and by this means preserve to 
the progeny the primitive vigour of the breed. Experience 
shows to w 7 hat extent this renew al is salutary. Again, w r e must 
put the sow 7 to hog at a suitable season of the year, in order 
that the bringing forth, and w eaning processes may fall in 
good time. Sow 7 s, having tw 7 o famnvs annually, ought to 
be fecundated about the months of April and October; and 
the young should not be taken from their mothers until two 
months are completed. Indeed, at a certain period, when 
they come to have got strength enough, the mother often 
drives them away from her; but such as are feeble and 
rickety may be left still w 7 ith her : not that they thrive any 
more for this ; they still remain, in spite of it, small and poor. 
It is better to put such pigs away by themselves, and bestow 
upon them especial care, particularly in regard to their feed- 
ing : in this way, sometimes it happens that they take to 
thrive. 
