The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-10-23
By DIR. GEORGE II. CONN In Swine Brccdcrs' Journal

l
 l United States millions of dollars each year. This fact has been shown more
 clearly the past few years since the meat inspection act has been in force. A
 few years ago when the packing houses
 were not compelled to subject their
 meats to a post -mortem inspection, | great deal of attention was not paid to this condition in hogs, but since such inspection requires that large amount | of the carcasses of such hogs shall not 1 be sold as food for human consumption, | the packers are very eager that meas ures be taken to eradicate this condi- | ton as soon as possible. The United States bureau of animal industry is at present making an effort to face all outbreaks of this disease for the owners 1 of the hogs when they are able to defi-
 nitely determine the farms from which the hogs have been shipped. The state 1 authorities are also assisting in a like
 manner.
 During the past year almost 10 per cent of all the hogs that were s1augh
 tered at plants that maintain govern
 ment inspection were found to be af I fected with tubercu bosis. In some of
 the older dairy districts as much as 9 per cent were found to be tubercular fin a few instances. Not all of these were
 condemned, however, but at that it was a heavy loss to the buyers. Such large per cent of the hogs were tubercuiar 1 VI, aoly | only buy subject to insp ton. If this
 condition is allowed to spread 1t will only be matter of few years until
 the packers twill buy everything sub | ject to inspection and the commission | men will require all animals that are 1 shipped them to be marked to be l easily identified, and then the owner
 will be the loser, if any loss is sustained 1 by any one. At present when the packer | knows that hogs that he is bidding on have been shipped from districts that are badly infested with tuberculosis, he will either buy subject to inspection or else he will offer bid much below the
 market value as a means of safeguard ing himself. For this reason many in nocent parties are losers as well as those that have tuberculosis.
 Tuberculosis does not peresent any
 
 and absolutely diagnosed from chini- cal examination. It is oftentimes found in large, fat, thrifty-looking hogs. In hogs that have had the disease such as brood sows and boars for som etime, general signs of unthriftiness and loss of appetite, indigestion loss of flesh and a gradual weakness of the animal with, in some cases, cough The only safe way to diagnose the disease is by n
 It is not at all likely that many hogs contract the disease from each other, but the majority of them get it from cattle or poultry and occasionally from human beings that are affected with the disease. Hogs that follow cattle that are infected with tuberculosis and that eat the droppings from them are usually found to be badly tubercular. The larger per cent of the cases of tu berculsosis are contracted from the germs that are taken up with the food that is eaten or from the material that the animals drink. Thus cows that have | tuberculosis pass off large quantities of
 the germs in their feces and the hogs in eating the undigested corn in them con- tract the disease. The reason that this condition Is so much worse in some of the dairy dis trcts is due to the fact that there is more tuberculosis among the cattle here and many of the hogs are allowed to follow the cows and others that do | not are fed upon skim milk, either from 1 the owners separator or from the | creamery where he sells his milk. If the | milk is sold at a creamery the skim | milk is usually run into large tank | and each man is allowed to draw off | that portion of skim milk that belongs | to him, so if any of the cows that fur nish milk that is sold here are con taminated with the germs of tuberculo- sis, many of the patrons, if noet all | them may contaminate their herds by ! the milk that they feed them from this 1 creamery. Since this has been the | means of spreading so much tubercu- | 1osis in this way many of the tsates | have passed laws compelling the pas teurization of all skim milk from | creameries. If you do not have skim | milk from creameries that may be dan | Serous, but are feeding separator milk 1 from cows that you are not absolutely 1 sure are free from tuberculosis, it ' would be well to pasteurize it before | feeding 1t to them. If you do not feel 1 that you can pasteurize it properly, the | next best thing is to boil it before feed ing.
 Another means of carrying the dis ease to healthy herds is by feeding them city garbage. Raw garbage. if collected in clean receptaclcs. is a very good hog feed but under ordinary con- ditions it should be cooked before it is fed It is not safe under any conditions to feed uncooked garbage as it is or dinarily collected from our American cities without first cooking it.
 Do not allow hogs to eat other ami mals that have died, as some of these animals may have had tuberculosis and thus be the means of conveying it to the hogs Neither should they be al- lowed to eat the offals from the farm butchering. or from the slaughtering house, unless it has first been cooked.
 Many people think that tankage will carry tuberculosis to hogs. but such is not increase. as. it is thoroughly tser- ilized, by the heating processes that it passes throughAin its preparation.
 All the cattle\ should be tested for tuberculosis. andNif any are found to be affected they kh0pld be properly