682 SOME ACCOUNT OF A SWINE PESTILENCE. 
that this inflammation was necessarily caused by the inocu- 
lation, as he observes that it did not appear until the four- 
teenth day, and that many hogs had this external form of 
disease. From these experiments, Dr. Sutton infers that this 
disease was infectious, and that the infection had a latent 
period of from ten to fifteen days. Observations have since 
led him to consider that the latent period may vary from 
twelve to twenty days. The experiments also showed, that 
the hogs in the pens were not dying from strychnine in the 
slop. A statement was going the round of the papers about 
this time, that strychnine was used in making yeast in the 
distilleries, and was poisoning the hogs at these places in 
large numbers. 
The manner in which this disease spread among the hogs 
from farm to farm, in many instances, also showed most con- 
clusively that it was infectious. One farmer had seventy- five 
hogs turned into a corn-field to fatten. These hogs had 
been exposed to the disease, had become sickly, and numbers 
had died. He bought thirty-six more ; these were all healthy; 
they were put into the same field with the diseased hogs ; in 
two weeks they were unwell and numbers died. He bought 
forty-five more, all healthy, and put them in the same field 
In two weeks they began to show symptoms of disease, and 
in a few days after a number died. Finding that he was 
likely to lose all his hogs, he sold fifty of the fattest that were 
left to the butchers in Cincinnati, at a reduced price, as 
diseased hogs. These hogs, it was said, were purchased for 
their fat, to be used in the manufacture of lard-oil. After 
deducting the fifty he sold, he lost out of the one hundred 
and fifty-six all but ten. A large number of facts could be 
given, if necessary, to prove the contagiousness of the disease. 
Hogs that have been once under the influence of this malady 
appear not to be susceptible to a second attack. Although 
placed in pens w T ith diseased hogs, they continue healthy and 
fatten, and not a single instance could there be found of hogs 
having this disease twice. There is reason to believe that 
this malady occasionally prevails at the distilleries in a mild 
form, as the old hogs at many of these places did not take 
the disease. On the farms, the old and young hogs appeared 
to be equally susceptible to the disease. 
While by these inquiries Dr. Sutton very clearly proved 
that the disease was directly transmissible from one hog to 
another, he further endeavoured to ascertain if such trans- 
mission were possible to other animals. A dog belonging to 
Mr. William Ricketts, of Aurora, was chained near the pens 
at the distillery, and fed on diseased meat; he continued 
