Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-11-08
STAGNANT WATER.
Some of It's DeleteriOus Effects Upon
Live Stock.

Live Stock.
Few farmers can have forgotten the dis
astrous rayages wrought in the Western
States, few years ago, by the disease
known as hog cholera, swine plague, typhus
of pigs and by various scientific terms.
! During the last two or three years the
country has seemed to be almost free from,
| the plague, but within a few months the
malady has appeared in several localities,
showing all the virulence that marked its
appearance in former years. In the early
part of the current year prediction was
made, by one who has given to diseases of
swine much careful study, that if the sum-
mer should be comparatively dry and
warm, hog cholera would decimate the
droves of this country. Reports published
from time to time, since that prediction
was made, show that the disorder has at
tackled swine in the Western and Middle
States, as well as those rs far east as New
England. In Virginia heavy losses have
been recently reported. In the vicinity of
Lynchburg the scourge appeared some
three months ago, and it is estimated that
in the counties of Bedford and Campbell
alone 10000 hogs have died within that
period from the disease named. These losses
represent a money value of not less than
100000, and much of this amount falls
upon poor people who depend largely on
the pork barrel for meat and for suhsti-
tute for butter.
For several years the Department of Ag-
riculture has been investigating the disor-
der mentioned, and the scientists who have
been employed in the researches seem to
Il 1 Il
has been found in bacilli, which swarm in
almost inconceivable multitudes in the
blood of the afflicted animals, damming up
the arteries and the veins, deranging the
action of the nerves, and finally causing
death. 1t has long been known that the
disease is virulently contagious very min
ute quantities of the excrement of an
affected animal being enough to convey
the poison to healthy herd. The germs
of the nlalady are carried in numberless
ways, and it will require constant watch
fulnesS to successfully guard healthy pigs
in regions where the hog cholera exists.
Not infrequently excrement, adhering to
the boots of a visitor to the sick swine has
served to infect a new locality. The wind
may carry the dried bacilli long distances,
to fall upon the grass or in the water, thus
to find their way to the internal organism
of previously healthy hogs. Running
streams may carry the virus to animals
further down; manure dropped from pass
ing stock trains may become dried and,
caught up by the breeze, fall within reach
of pigs, which in turn become new centers
of infection. Hogs dead of cholera arc
eaten by their fellows, and fill the systems
Of the latter with a poison that will result
in death.
Anthrax, or Charlton, has caused the
death of many thousands of cattle and
sheep. Even as lately as a week or two
ago a number of cases have been reported
in the West 1t is known that this disor-
der so mysteriously and seemingly so sud
denly fatal, is caused by bacteria which
swarm in prodigious number in the system
of the victim Milk sickness is another
ailment that has caused the death of thou
sands of human beings, cattle, swine, dogs
and other animals. Milk, butter and the
flesh of animals having this disease convey
the poison to those who drink or eat thereof
There seems to be reasons for believing
that these disorders have their origin, or
their favorite habitat, at least beside slug
gish streams flowing through rich low
lands where stagnant pools lie, amid rot
ten vegetation, under sun almost tropi-
cal in its fervent heat. Thence the germs
have been carried by suffering animals,
and probably by birds also, to be scattered
in their weddings and otherwise in new
and more or less favorable places there to
make new centers Of cultivation and of
contagion. In the course of his investiga-
ton into the nature and origin of milk
sickness, DR.. Joseph Gardner Of Indiana
found in the blood of man, of cattle, of
pigs, and Of other animals prodigious
swarms of bacteria, Identical with those
that thronged the stagnant water from
which these all drank, and with those in
the milk used by human beings attacked
by the disease. He clearly traced the
deadly ailment to the Use of water or milk
from these poisoned sources, the like Of
which are found on too many farms, par
ticularly in the valleys Of Ohio the Mis-
sissippi and the Missouri.
In the course Of investigations Under
taken by the Department of Agriculture
to determine the nature of the disease
known Is lombriz, or worms in sheep, ii
was learned that the chief source of the
malady WIS in stacHant pools from which
the sheep we're compelled to drink. The
! eggs OF the worm. SiroagyIps coptortHs,
which causes the trouble, are deposited on
/ the ground, where they retain life, if Il
/ certain degree Of warmth and moisture are
present, until heavy rain washes them
! into some pond or water-hole, or Il low,
wet, muddy place, in which they can pass
their embryonic stage, either in the water
or on Aquatic plants. Lambs or sheep
drink the water, or eating the plants take
into their stomachs the Young worms,
which attach themselves to the walls Oi
the fourth stomach, and suck the life from
tender young lambs and from the weaker
among the older sheep. The water from
which the affected animals drank VA,
found to be alive with swarms of youn2
worms, and with ether germs Of disease.
In the course OF investigations where an
thrax had killed large number of sheep
it was learned that as long as the iiocs
continued to drink from pool on the
range, the deaths numbered from twelve e
fifteen per day, but stopped rs soon as the
flock was removed to range where The
water was not polluted Microscopic ex
animation showed that the pools were alive
latter undoubtedly the bacillus anthraeis
Many theories have been advanced t.
account for the prevalence Of swine-plague
the most popular being that the feeding o
corn, rs an exclusive diet in fa,ttenine, i
the chief predisposinS cause. If the use o
water from foul and stagnant pools ha
been suggested as the principal source 0
the contagion, the fact has not been mad,
generally public. Yet it seems more than
probable that if supply of pure waite
could be always at hand, and access t.
stagnant pools and foul water could be pre-
vented, losses from the malady namet
would be much less in frequency and ex
tent than they are now. Clearly, 1t is bet
. ter to be safe than to be sorry, and no on
will have cause to regret using all avail
able means for removing the probable
causes Of disease, even though there ma.
be doubts in his mind as to the correctne-
of the conclusions reached b. the scien
tists- Prairie Farmer