448 
DEATH OF PIGS. 
BLOOD DISEASE. 
few years ago I recollect some valuable hogs being destroyed 
by feeding upon the sweepings of warehouses in which a 
quantity of saltpetre existed. These cases were, I believe, 
published in this Journal. As a rule, I believe that old strong 
hogs are not so easily affected by improper food as young 
ones, and I have sometimes known sows to appear in perfect 
health when suckling their pigs, but yet to have their milk 
so altered in quality from the effects of bad food as to 
destroy the pigs. 
In cases like those alluded to in the above letter some¬ 
thing special must have been in operation to have destroyed 
so many pigs. What, I would ask, is so likely to produce 
death in the manner described by Mr. Peech as the food— 
solid and liquid—which the animals partook of, or the air 
they breathed ? Either of these would, when vitiated to a 
great extent, produce a poisoned state of the blood. The 
symptoms observed when the pigs were first taken ill, to¬ 
gether with the rapid course of the disease would lead to 
the conclusion that blood poisoning was the immediate cause 
of death. This opinion is also borne out by th q post-mortem 
appearances. 
I carefully examined the carcasses of the pigs, and the 
lesions observed were quite consistent with this theory. In 
two of the pigs the large intestines were extensively 
diseased, the mucous membrane was much thickened, and 
its basement structure was of a purplish-scarlet colour. In 
some parts the intense red colour was arranged in transverse 
streaks. On the free surface a layer of lymph, varying in 
thickness, was deposited, resembling very much that which 
is found on the mucous membrane of the throat in cases of 
diphtheria, which affection it was suggested by a friend to be 
analogous to, if not identical with, in character. A disease 
of this kind, affecting the posterior part of the alimentary 
canal, instead of the anterior, although very unusual, is 
nevertheless within the range of possibility. For my own 
part, by reflecting on the symptoms, death, and post-mortem 
appearances, I have thought the disease might be designated 
enteric fever , induced by a poisoned state of the blood. 
In another pig the lungs were the chief organs affected, the 
bowels being but slightly involved; but the lesions in the latter 
organs appeared to be the same in character as those affect¬ 
ing the intestines of the other two pigs. Both lungs were 
partially hepatized, and some of the bronchi were filled with 
a lympth-like deposit. I see no reason, physiologically or 
pathologically, why the disease in these organs should not 
have been produced by the same cause as that which af- 
