316 
MALIGNANT FEVER OF SWINE. 
A discharge from the nasal membrane is obtained ; the urine is 
clear and copiously discharged ; and the dejections are pulta- 
ceous and abundant. This mode of treatment should be pursued 
eight days. If a pig is attacked, he should be separated imme¬ 
diately from the others. All the animals should be removed 
from that stye, which should be well fumigated during three 
days. 
Bv these preservative means I have frequently had the happi¬ 
ness to see the epizootic arrested in its course ; and I have 
driven out of use all those powders and mixtures, which certain 
persons used to administer as infallible, both in the prevention 
and cure of the complaint, but whose only effect was to make 
the farmer pay dearly for his credulity. 
Curative treatment . —I have said that all curative treatment 
will fail with regard to the animals attacked by disease of the 
first class ; and even if they could be rescued from death, they 
would generally fall into marasmus or become paralytic, yet it 
may be useful to relate the means which I have adopted. 
As soon as a pig is attacked, he should be separated from the 
others, and placed in some comfortable place. A seton of black 
hellebore root should be inserted in his breast, and the decoction 
of sorrel with camphor, nitre, and calomel, administered ; the 
whole of the spine, and especially the dorsal and lumbar portions, 
should be embrocated with hot vinegar ; emollient injections, 
slightly nitrated or acidulated, should be administered, and 
aromatic fumigations made. If he seems to derive benefit from 
this, which will be indicated by the regularity of the pulse—the 
ceasing of the plaintive cries—the respiration becoming less la¬ 
borious—the convulsions disappearing—the black spots not ap¬ 
pearing—and the place at which the seton is inserted becoming 
swelled, there will be some chance of success. The mixture and 
the injections must be repeated every two hours, and the animal 
should be restricted to water whitened with a little barley or 
rye-meal. If, however, the symptoms are increasing in intensity, 
there is no hope of doing good, and the case should be aban¬ 
doned. Bleeding at the ears or the tail is always dangerous: 
even used as a preventive, I believe it to be useless—it is difficult 
to obtain a sufficient quantity; and those that were not bled in 
my preventive treatment escaped quite as often as those on whom 
venesection had been employed. As a curative measure I am 
assured that bleeding is dangerous in a disease which consists 
chiefly in a change or decomposition of the blood : this operation 
will hasten the morbid process—it will undermine the strength 
of the patient—augment the putrid diathesis—and hasten the 
death of the animal. 
