Swine Fever ; Anthrax. 
137 
decline in the number of cases need be expected under the 
present method of dealing with it. This is now generally 
admitted, but the measures which would yield more satisfac- 
tory results cannot in the meantime be brought into operation, 
because of the rather serious expenditure, in the way of 
compensation for slaughtered horses, which they would involve. 
Swine Fever. 
The following Table shows the number of outbreaks of 
this disease for the past eight years : — 
Year 
Outbreaks 
Year 
Outbreaks 
1898 
2,514 
1902 
1.688 
1899 
2,322 
1903 
1.478 
1900 
1.940 
1904 
1,188 
1901 
3,140 
1905 
817 
The total number of pigs slaughtered as diseased or exposed 
to infection during the past year was 3,876, and to appreciate the 
extremely satisfactory nature of the present position, it ought 
to be remembered that in some years, before the disease was 
taken in hand by the Board of Agriculture, as many as 30,000 
pigs were returned as having been affected with it. Indeed, 
during one year (1887) no fewer than 41,973 animals were 
attacked, while the total outbreaks numbered 7,238, and the 
disease occurred in seventy-one counties. 
The steady decline in the number of outbreaks since 1901 
justifies a confident hope that the efforts to exterminate the 
disease will before very long prove successful. Should that 
result be actually achieved, it will constitute a triumph even 
greater than the stamping out of cattle-plague, foot-and-mouth 
disease, and pleuro-pneumonia. 
Anthrax. 
The following Table shows the incidence of this disease 
in Great Britain during the past five years : — 
Year 
Outbreaks 
Animals attacked 
1901 
651 
971 
1902 
678 
1,032 
1903 
767 
1,143 
1904 
1,023 
... 1,533 
1905 
967 
1,333 
The figures for the past year are satisfactory in the sense 
that they show a slight decrease as compared with those for 
1904, but they are disappointing in so far as they indicate that 
the present methods of dealing with the disease are powerless 
to reduce the number of outbreaks. The probable explanation 
