Swine Fever ; Fowl Cholera. 
233 
The very fact that after so many years of effort the Board 
of Agriculture has failed to stamp out swine fever is quite 
likely to be used as an argument in support of the opinion 
that the disease is ineradicable. There is, however, no 
sufficient reason for taking such a despondent view. Although 
the contrary has sometimes been suggested, it may he regarded 
as certain that swine fever is a purely contagious disease, no 
pig ever becoming the subject of it except through direct or 
indirect connection with an antecedent case of the disease. It 
therefore follows that if it were possible to ascertain all the 
places at which the disease now exists and then to slaughter 
all the diseased and “ in-contact ” animals, and to carry out 
efficient disinfection of contaminated premises, the disease 
would thereby be finally brought to an end. The fact that 
the disease has not been exterminated and is actuallv now 
*/ 
increasing proves that these conditions are not being fulfilled. 
In particular, it must be inferred that the Board of Agri- 
culture is not obtaining prompt information with regard to 
outbreaks, and as long as that is the case no prqgress in 
stamping out the disease can be expected. For some time 
past the Board of Agriculture has not dealt with every outbreak 
by those cattle plague measures which the late Sir George Brown 
long ago declared to be necessary for the eradication of 
swine fever. When the disease is diagnosed it is not the 
invariable practice of the Board to slaughter the whole of the 
pigs on the premises, but the owner is placed under serious 
restrictions with regard to the movement or sale of his animals, 
and often experiences considerable loss both on that account 
and through continued deaths from the disease long after the 
first case was detected. An owner so treated naturally feels 
that he has a serious grievance, and it is scarcely open to doubt 
that a knowledge of the fact, that in dealing with outbreaks 
where large numbers of pigs are concerned the Board of 
Agriculture does not always slaughter out and compensate, 
is calculated to lead to concealment of the disease. Needless 
to say if such concealment is practised in any considerable 
proportion of outbreaks, the disease will inevitably spread. 
Fowl Cholera. 
The disease termed fowl cholera is a very common one 
in most European countries, but the only available statistics 
with regard to it come from Germany, in which in one year as 
many as from seventy to eighty thousand cases of the disease 
are notified. The disease has so seldom been diagnosed in 
Great Britain that its occurrence in this country has actuallv 
been denied. In reality the disease appears to be not very 
common among British poultry, but from time to time cases 
