Annual Report for 1913 of Royal Veterinary College. 351 
diseases mentioned were successfully dealt with because 
drastic restrictions were placed on the movement of cattle in 
infected districts, and every animal known or reasonably 
suspected to have been exposed to risk of infection was 
promptly slaughtered, and there does not appear to be any 
reason to doubt that the consistent application of the same 
procedure would yield the same result in the case of swine 
fever. . 
The soundness of the second contention is much moie 
open to doubt, especially as in estimating the annual loss 
inflicted by the disease one has to take into account the 
possibility of diminishing the loss by comparatively inexpen- 
sive means, that is, inexpensive as compared with the cost of 
enforcing stamping-out measures. It may be added that the 
calculation is also made difficult because it is not easy to 
estimate the indirect losses which a contagious disease or 
the measures enforced against it entail by interference with 
breeding and trade in animals. It is obvious, however, that 
if a simple inexpensive cure for swine fever, or a quick and 
not too costly method of immunising pigs against the disease 
could be discovered the stamping-out plan would immediately 
become economically unsound. If either of these things could 
be discovered it might no longer be worth while to retain 
swine fever among the scheduled contagious diseases, and at 
any rate it would be intolerable to maintain the measures 
which are now enforced against it. During the past year it 
has been freely asserted that this is the actual state of affairs 
with' regard to swine fever, since the discovery of what . is 
termed the “ serum treatment ” is held to be at once a cuiative 
and an immunising procedure. The Board of Agriculture and 
Fisheries has accordingly been reproached for not introducing 
this method of treatment, and it has even been suggested t a 
the existing “ regulations might be swept away, root and branch, 
with advantage.” It therefore appears to be of interest to 
explain what is meant by “serum treatment” of swine fever, 
and to examine the evidence put forward to show that it 
might with advantage be used to replace the present methoc 
of dealing with the disease. 
Anti-swine fever serum is prepared on the same plan as ie 
well-known anti-diphtheria serum, anti-tetanus serum, &c. 1 he 
general principle which underlies the manufacture of ese 
substances is as follows When an animal is found to be 
immune after recovery from a particular bacterial disease, that 
is because it has present in its body, and particular y m mts 
blood, a substance which is injurious to the bacteria of that 
disease. The animal body has been provoked during the 
illness to manufacture this substance, and it continues to 
