SMALL POX IN PIGS. 
267 
come more striking. The pustules were observed gradually swell¬ 
ing around their edges, leaving the well-known peculiar flatness, 
and oftentimes depression, of their centres. And a very great portion 
of those under the belly and between the thighs shewed the circle 
of areola so peculiarly characteristic of variola generally : their 
tops or heads forming a hard brown scale, like as in the sheep or 
the human being, as they “ died away” (as it is called). 
There were eight pigs, but only five of them had the disease, 
although they were not separated. I very much regretted Mr. Per¬ 
kins was from home all the while they were ill, or I am quite sure 
he would have allowed me to try what effect inoculation would have 
had on those in the same sty that had not taken the disease. They 
all gradually recovered, and are now doing as well as possible. 
The next appearance of the disease,—and it was not long 
afterwards,—was in two lean pigs, at Messrs. Curtis and 
Harvey’s Powder Mills, about a mile and half or two miles distant 
from the habitation of the former ones. They had been purchased by 
the clerk residing on the premises, and soon after he got them they 
fell off in their appetite, and so continued for three weeks. They 
then broke out with variola Their heads and legs were swollen 
exactly like the others, discharging the same from the eyes and 
nose ; and their heads became so stopped up by the thickening of 
the membrane lining of the nasal cavity as for the breath to be 
scarcely admissible. They hung their heads down exactlv as the 
sheep does in the same disease. In their feeding they always pre¬ 
ferred what was cold, and poor food (such as bran and water), to 
what was good and made warm for them. They both being very 
poor before they were attacked by the disease, caused them to 
suffer much from weakness. One of them died about ten days 
after the first appearance of the eruption ; the other recovered very 
slowly from the attack. 
The next appearance of the disease was on the farm of a 
widow lady at Lampton, a Mrs. Rogers, residing about two miles 
from the other cases, in a direct line. At this house but three 
were attacked with the disease, although there were many more 
pigs in the yard. The disease passed through all its stages in the 
same manner as in the others, and as it would in the sheep or in 
the human being. These cases recovered, and did quite well. 
The pustules were as large as any I have observed in any of 
the sheep I have seen ; but the disease did not in any one of them 
assume the confluent form. Neither could it be very contagious 
or infectious, or the other pigs at Mrs. Rogers’ farm must have 
taken it. And although Mr. Perkins’ pigs were kept shut up in 
their own stye, yet the others could get to the door ; and we all 
know if one pig gets to another’s door, he will be smelling under it. 
