El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1910-07-09

EVTASHINGTON, D. c.. July g.
~ Pork is to be cheaper. The price
is to be lowered by saving 10
the farmers $25,000,0G0 a year which
they now lose by the plague OF hog
cholera.
Up to now no means has been known
whereby the disease could be dealt with
effectively DURING the summer and
early fall of every year it has ragged,
causing an annual loss Of as much as
S5.000,000 to individual states. such as
Missouri and Iowa. But the federal gov
eminent has at last solved the problem,
and there is every reason to expect that
within a few years hog cholera in this
country will he practically eliminated. 1t
viii no longer exist, save for an occa-
sional small outbreak, perhaps, which
can be easily checked.
The government, having found a
remedy for the mischief serum,
that is to say. which renders pigs
cholera-pr oof-might easily manufacture
ana distribute the stuff in indefinite
quantities, Just as 1t Now sends out
tuberculin on wholesale scale to all
parts of the country, for testing cattle.
But the Bureau of Animal Industry.
which has worked out the problem, con
siders that it Is now up to- the states
to appropriate the necessary money, es-
tablisa their own plants, and ''immunize
their own hogs.
States Take Up Work.
They have taken UP the idea with en-
thusiasm- especially the states OF the
corn belt of the middle west, which are
most interested in the hog-raising indus
trv-and already the serum" is bein~
widel4 Gistr7b uted in Chic. INDIANA Mis-
souri,. Minnesota, and Michigan. Illinois
has made an appropriation for the work,
and Kansas today is ready with 10O,-
900 doses of the preventative for use
during the next few months.
The government experiments have been
conducted on farm, specially equipped
for the purpose. at Ames. In Iowa, and
invitations were sent out TO the health
authorities of ali the states some time
AGO. asking them to come and see how
the serum was made. ThiTtv states nave
Already responded. and by this means an
aeouaintance with the method of treat
ment. and the processes involved. is being
+, D;dlv spread to all sections of the
union.
Fortunately, the matter, now that 1t
has come 10 be understood, is very simple.
BIT in order that it may be made clear,
it should be explained that the supposed
germ of hog cholera was discovered %
years ago-a baciIns resembling that OF
typhoid fever; whence the term nj"
typhoid" sometimes applied to the dis
ease That this was really the TeSpOn-
si5le micr0be was accepted as beyond
question by scientists all over the world
Nevertheless, there was something YER
odd about it. Efforts to make from it an
effective serum, or satisfactory vac
cine" were unsuccessful When cultures
of the bacillus in question were fed TO
pigs. or injected into their bodies. thew
developed disease which bore all the
marks of hog cholera But other pigs,
though intimately associated with the
animals thus made sick. did not take the
disease whereas hog cholera under nat
l,ral conditions Is frightfully contagious
Many Experiments
Hogs that have had the cholera. and
recovered from it, are proof against the
disease. But those pigs which got well
after being made sick with the artificial
complaint exhibited no such immunity.