The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-03-26
HOG CHOLERA.

cholera seems to go where 1t llsTe6h
and stay..as long as it pleaseth. Inc
doctors have given the germ a name
long enough, apparently, to kill It,
Bacillus chOLerCe suiS, but it is lot as
easy to kill as a hog with qu2nsy.
Now anti toxic hog cholera serum
is being experimental with, and
many claim that it is a sur proven
tive. and even a cure when the case
is i'll it's incipiency. This serum is
grown in other animals as the horse
or COW, by injecting a virulent cul-
ture of hog cholera into the arteries
of either of these animals. The
enzvme, or ferment thus obtained
contains no cholera germs, but is
said to prevent and even cure the
disease. The experiments carried on
by the Jensen Creamery Company of
Kansas, are interesting if not con-
elusive. They were conducted as
follows:
Twelve shoats we're %inoculated
with anti-toxic hog cholera serum,
and then turned into a pen where a
hog had died with hog cholera and
the carcass remained for some time.
They showed not the least sign of
cholera afterwards and fattened up
so they were in a few months sold
for pork. The above experiment
was vouched for by the agricultural
experiment station.
Of course, we must not be too san
guine, but must wait for further de-
velopments. zone swallow does not
make a summer" neither does one
experiment like this settle the hog
cholera question.
It is certainly not beyond a pos,
sibility that a specific will be discov-
cred. Such has been done for other
diseases, and it is not at all improb-
able that we will be able to immune
our hogs in the near future from
this worst of all animal scourges.
There ire 80 many claiming to have
discovered specifics that we should
be very cautious about receiving
them without investigation.
But while we are investigating
remedies, let US take thought for
some Of the preventives. The old
adage is still in vogue that Gan
ounce of prevention is worth a pound
of cure" and, 1 might add, more
than a hundred weight of cure.
Of all the agencies for carrying
the cholera [ would name the buzzard
as the greatest. Hog cholera is a
zymotic or bacterial disease, and can
be conveyed from one to another in
the vOmit, or in the excrement, or
by the blood. From the nature of
the case a buzzard would spread it
faster than anything else, as he feeds
on the carcass of cholera killed hogs
left to rot by careless people. They
get their bodies pretty we'll smeared
with the blood, ETC., of the dead hog
and then fly away even, to another
county or State conveying the dread
disease to others. The buzzard does
not care, as it means more meat for
him, and the man who left the car
cass to rot either does not care, or
does not know any better the latter
[ hope, even if the result is the same
to his neighbors. The buzzard will
invariably visit hog pens where meat
and bones r fed with slOps. It
may be they alight on trees in a hog
lot to rOOst or to pick themselves. If
one feather should fall and come in
contact with the hogs they may con-
tract the disease. The excrement
falls on leaves that are blown about
with every wind, and may be blown
into a hog lot. Keep the buzzards
from eating carcasses of hogs dying
with cholera, and the spread of the
disease would be circumscribed in
deed.
Next 1 would mention the stock
law, or no fence law, as being a fine
preventive of cholera. This may
seem overdrawn, but when we re-
member that with the old regime
every mans hogs roamed all g
the country for miles, and when a
hog died nobody buried him, and
while sick he was giving it to all the
neighbOrs' hogs with which he came
in contact. The originators of the
stock law built wiser than they
knew. They were after saving the
expense of a fence, but they did
more by preventing to a certain ex-