Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1898-01-26
HOG CHOLERA CURE.
The Experiment. Of Secretary Wilson
Proves Successful.

The Experiment. Of Secretary Wilson
Proves Successful.
Nothing that has occurred since he
became Secretary of Agriculture has
! given Prof. Wilson half as much graz
| ihcation as the results of the expert
ments that have been going on under
his direction in Iowa and Nebraska
during the last few months in the
treatment of hog cholera by inocu1a-
ton, for he thinks that the discover
les which have thus been DEVELOPED
are worth $1OO,OO0,OOO a year to the
people of the United States. He is
not quite ready to give out the reports,
but they will be arranged for pub1ica-
ton in a few days. Until then it is
sufficient to say that the experiments
have been eminently successful and
Justify the belief that the disease
which has carried off so many swine
in the past years and has cost the
farmers of the country so many mil
lions of dollars can not only be cured
but be prevented at trifing expendi-
ture of money and labor.
The experiments were undertaken
In Page county, Iowa, last spring
where several hundred hogs that were
afflicted with a disease that has until
now been considered fatal were cured
by the use of serum, and several hun
dred more that were perfectly healthy
when protected by the serum were
permitted to range freely among those
that were diseased without showing
any effects from the contagiou. Eigh-
ty-hve per cent. of the sick were cured
and the healthy protected Similar
experiments have been going ON in
Nebraska all summer, but the detailed
returns have not been received. The
serum is obtained in the same manner
as that of the anti-toxin that is used
for diphtheria. A horse or cow is
inoculated with the germs day after
day until no effect is apparent. Its
veins are then tapped, few drops of
its blood injected under the skin of
healthy hogs and it has the same eff
feet as a preventive of cholera that
vaccination has in smallpox. There
was scarcely failure in several hun
dred cases, although the animals were
exposed to the disease in every posi-
BILE manner. The same treatment
was equally successful in curing the
disease when taken in the ear1v
stages.
DR.. Salmon, chief of the bureau of
animal industry of the agricultural
department, thiuks that the average
can be increased to 90 per cent. next
year, because experience will teach
knowledge and wisdom. Curious1y
enough, the cultivation of the serum
does not injure the horse or the COW,
and the animal can be used over and
over again every year until it becomes
aged, provided it is given plenty of
those forms of fodder that supply and
strengthen the blood. A single horse
or cow will produce 1000 doses of
serum year, and, if ordinary econo-
my is practiced, this will reduce the
cost of treatment to 10 or IS cents per
hog. Hundreds of thousands of horses
throughout the United States that are
now killed for their hides may be used
to save the hogs, and their value will
be increased by the demand thus
created for them.
The Secretary of Agriculture can
continue the experiments without fur
Their legislation, but to make a practi-
cal use of the discovery will require
an appropriation of Congress, and he
will ask for $250,OO0 for the purpose of
obtaining serum and distributing it
among the farmers throughout the
country. The method of cu1tivating
it can be taught to all the agricultural
experiment stations and on the large
| stock farms, and with a little expert
ence farmers may be able to furnish
| their own supply. The county apri-
cultural societies can take up the mat
ter, and by cooperation their mem
bers can reduce the cost and extend
the usefulness of the treatment. hut
in the meantime Secretary Wilson
considers it his duty to introduce the
remedy and educate farmers and stock
growers until they can take care of
themselves.
Secretary Wilson estimates the an.
nual loss from hog cholera in the
United States from 500, 600, 900 to $780,
100000. In the state of Iowa alone.
where statistics of the mortality of
the animals afflicted with this disease
have been accurately kept, the annual
loss is S15,OO0,0OO. He believes that
nearly all this can be prevented.
In 1892 there were 52,398, O1o swine
in the United States, valued at $685.
426,492. That was high-water mark.
Since then their number and value
have been materially decreased by the
cholera, and the figures for 1897 were
&c, 600, 276 hogs, valued at S166, 272. ITO.
These hogs are worth an average of
1854 each. Iowa is the largest hog
state in the country, the census for
1897 showing 3,737, $40 animals, valued
at 81, 182, $50. Missouri comes next,
then Texat, Ohio; Illinois, Georgia.
Tennessee Alabama M;sS;Ss;1,: -