The Dawson News

UNCLE SAM GOING TO SAVE MILLIONS YEARLY DETAILING PIGS

Hog Cholera Expert Has Ordered Pigs' Tails Cut Off. He Is Going to Treat Dread Disease Just Like Small Pox, and Easiest Way to Get Serum Is by Cutting Tails from Immunes.

Washington is getting pigs' tails Uncle Sam proposes to save $15,000,000 per year. In this laudable economy he will probably have the assistance of the state of Missouri, which proposes to cut off a few pigs' tails on its own account. In this peculiar project all of you who eat ham and other forms of pork have a deep personal interest. The $15,000,000 per year has been coming out of the pocket of each of you, and it is you who will get the benefit when this economy scheme is worked out to perfection. One Missouri man is already well posted on the tail-cutting business. He is Dr. J. W. Connaway, experiment station veterinarian of Columbia. He but recently attended a meeting at Ames, Ia., where scientists cut pigs' tails with neatness and dispatch, and with remarkable practical results. Dr. Connaway is now preparing to perform the same highly scientific operation right at Columbia, Mo.

The discovery that this hitherto irresistible disease can be conquered by a treatment with which tail-cutting has a unique connection is the most recent triumph of science, and the latest great service of the bureau of animal industry, of which A. D. Melvin is chief.

An Unseen Enemy.

In conquering this disease Uncle Sam has fought a battle against an enemy whom he has never seen. That enemy is a tiny bug, the existence of which is known only because of its unwelcome activity. You would scarcely look upon the coarse hog as fighting an exclusive silk-stocking aristocrat of the bug world, one which always hides its head from the inquiring gaze of the man with the microscope. Scientists formerly felt the same way about it. They sought, and found in connection with hog cholera, a bug which they could halter and tie, so to speak, and study at their leisure with the help of the microscope. They call it "bacillus Cholera suis," which is a phrase calculated to give much satisfaction to the scientists. In plain English, it means "the bug which causes hog cholera."

Upon the assumption that they had caught the bug that did the business the scientists went to work to put an end to his mischief. They devised schemes to make his days full of unhappiness, and to prevent the continuation of his natural activities in the interior of pigdom. But things didn't happen according to schedule. With the "bacillus cholera suis" dead or accounted for the pigs had the cholera just the same. For years after the bug with the scientific name had been haltered the hogs in Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and other swine-raising states died in droves from the dread cholera. The blow fell first and hardest on the farmers. But in the long run it was accounted part of the cost of raising hogs, and a good share of the loss was passed along in the form of higher prices for pork.

Bug Wrongly Named.

Then science became suspicious. Had it caught the real cholera bug? This question looked very interesting to Dr. M. Dorset, who has devoted 14 years to answering questions like that. He proved to his own satisfaction, as well as to that of Dr. Melvin, that the "bacillus cholera suis" had been wrongly named. His method of proof was direct and convincing. From a pig, which had all the symptoms of cholera, he drew a little blood and injected it into the system of a healthy hog. In this particular case the blood drawn from the sick animal had not a trace of the so-called hog cholera bacillus. But the poor piggy into which the blood was injected rapidly sickened, and in a few days turned up his toes. Dr. Dorset found that it was not difficult, in the early stages of the disease, to secure from a sick pig blood in which that fake cholera bacillus could not be found at all. Moreover, the introduction of the old cholera bugs into the systems of well pigs did not, by themselves, cause the disease which had been recognized as cholera. And so Dr. Dorset came to the conclusion that the dreaded bug played, at the most, only a secondary part in the troubles of pigdom.

This left the scientists to battle with an enemy which skulked in ambush. During all these months of his fight Dr. Dorset has never seen the enemy. He has about given up hope that he ever will see it. He knows that it is either so tiny that it defies the microscope, or that it is so agile that its movements look to the human eye as the flowing of a light. One of his favorite tricks is to turn a double back somersault through a carefully constructed filter. In this specialty it has few rivals, notable among them being the bug that causes yellow fever.

Filter Halts Most Germs.

The typhoid fever germ, and a great host of other inhabitants of bugdom, give a filter up as a bad job. They can't get through it, and that's why filtration is an adequate protection of drinking water supply. Just now this exclusive cholera bug gets through a filter Dr. Dorset doesn't know. It is altogether possible that he is so small as to slip between the particles of the closely-packed filter bed. Or it may be that he is as large as ordinary bugs, but can flatten himself out sufficiently to get through. One thing is certain, he gets through. Dr. Dorset has repeatedly filtered blood taken from a hog sick with cholera, introduced the filtered part into a well pig, and caused a fatal attack of hog cholera. But Dr. Dorset did not need to see the animal to fight him. Having at last discovered that there was an animal skulking in ambush he used the very creature itself to accomplish the destruction of its own power. He found a hog which had survived an attack of cholera, and injected underneath its skin the blood of a hog which was sick from cholera. This gave the blood of the immune hog the power to prevent cholera in other pigs. And this is the point where the tail-cutting comes in.

The question was how to get the blood from the immune, and thus to secure the serum which would be used in vaccination. The difficulty was that all the vitals and the arteries of pigs lie deep, and that they cannot be tapped without killing the pig. But W. B. Niles, who is assisting Dr. Dorset, found that the blood could be obtained with least inconvenience to the hog by cutting off its tail, and this was done at the recent meeting of scientists at Ames.

Keeps Clipping the Tail.

Before the hog was weakened through loss of blood the tail was ligatured and left to heal. When the hog recovers its strength more serum can be obtained by cutting off a little more of its tail. From one immune sufficient serum can be obtained to successfully vaccinate 200 hogs. But the production of serum is too great a job for a federal government, and this fact was recognized at the Iowa meeting. It was there decided that the state experiment stations should take up the production of serum in the method which has been successfully followed by the federal government. Dr. Connaway of the Missouri experiment station coincided in this conclusion. He has gone farther than any other state expert in experimenting with the serum, and has announced his purpose to soon furnish serum to the hog raisers of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Indiana and Iowa, which were also represented at the Ames meeting, and it is expected that those states will also go into the tail-cutting business.

The success of the serum has been demonstrated to the satisfaction of scientists. In the most rigid tests it has protected ninety-seven or ninety-eight per cent. of hogs exposed to the disease. The serum is injected under the skin of the hog to be immunized. A dose amply sufficient for protection is about four teaspoonfuls. By itself the serum will not give protection for as long a time as when it is used in connection with blood from a pig sick with cholera. In the latter case the serum is injected on one side and the blood on the other. The two fight it out inside, without inconvenience to the pig.

Dr. Dorset, the man who showed Uncle Sam how he could save $15,000,000 per year, is 35 years of age. His salary is one four-thousand-two-hundred-and-fiftieth part of the amount which it may reasonably be expected his discovery will save each year for the American people. The discovery is patented in his name, but the patent is so drawn as to give the use of it free to the American public.