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whole of the large intestine down to the rectum contains ulcers; in the coecum they are confluent and very extensive. The ulcers. rarely tend to perforation. Ulcers in the stomach are rare. The typical ulcers of swine plague can hardly be confounded with lesions of any other malady. They are preceeded by small nodular formations in the mucusa, these producing rounded elevations on the surface, which may be felt by passing the hand over them. They are grayish in color, and at first discrete and resistent to the touch; after a time central softening takes place, followed by eruption, and the formation of distinct, small circular ulcers with jagged edges, and of a grayish, or grayish-yellow, or black color. Many of these ulcers remain discrete, while others coalesce and produce extensive ulcerated tracts of very irregular shape. Whilst these changes are taking place the coats of the bowel become very thick and hard and either black or dark red in appearance. The contents of the bowel may be simply fluid, or semifluid, dark in color, and of a peculiar sickly. odor; or they may be found in the form of small concrete masses which adhere tenaciously to the mucus membrane, and when detached therefrom leave a roughened and sometimes an inflamed surface, or they may be found in the form of large masses of a very dark color, firm consistence, very cohesive and coated with a layer of mucus or mucus mixed with blood. Associated with the intestinal lesions there is frequently great engorgement of the mesenteric capillairies and sometimes mesenteric extravisation. The lymphatic glands show an alteration in their character very soon in the disease, and frequently serve to mark the disease when other symptoms are wanting. The mesenteric, hepatic and bronchial glands are most frequently found involved; also the glands along the descending aorta; the sternal and submaxillary glands. The glands are much swollen, firmer than natural, more or less red or even purple or black in color, and when cut into a considerable amount of red fluid oozes out. Changes occur in the mesenteric glands similiar to those described in other glands.

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Prevention. The failure to prevent this formidable disease is largely due to the ignorance, laziness and carelessness of the owners of hogs; because the prevention of its dissemination by the means heretofore mentioned rests largely with them. best means of preventing the disease is in slaughtering diseased hogs and destroying them, and the thoroughly disinfecting the hog quarters, preferably by fire. When this can not be done the pens should be thoroughly cleansed and disinfected with the best germicidal agent. The hog should be kept in an inclosure free from accumulations of manure, straw, litter of any kind, or remains of dead hogs, in which the contagion may possibly be preserved. As hog cholera is an infectious disease, the chief and real seat of danger is where sick hogs are or have been. So don't leave a well hog where a sick one is or has been. Don't fail to examine the hogs frequently, and to separate the sick from the

well hogs. Don't allow the same person to take care of the sick and well hogs. Don't allow any intercourse of men, dogs or fowls between the pens of either lot of hogs. Don't put well hogs in a pen or upon land where hog cholera has been in less than three years, unless the same has been thoroughly cleansed of all refuse, ploughed or dug up several times and exposed to the air for an entire summer. Don't forget that closed pens, sheds, strawstacks and accumulated litter are more dangerous than open country where swine plague has prevailed in such places. Don't water hogs from running streams. Don't place your pens or runs so they can drain into running streams. Don't forget that all such places should be well drained and kept as dry as may be possible. Don't bury dead hogs when you can burn them up. Don't sell or buy sick hogs. Don't visit your neighbor's hogs when sick or allow him to visit yours if well. Don.t forget that watchfulness, carefulness and diligence will do more to prevent swine plague than all medicines.

As to treatment, very little can be said of practical value, for whilst various modes of treatment hold out the hope of some recoveries, yet the risk to the well animals is so great that it seems best to accept the present, rather than to incur the risk of future greater loss. Yet if one will try it under proper precautions the following rules offer the best prospect of cure: Clear out the bowels with some purgative and follow this with sulphur and potash salts. When there is great depression and lung trouble, give carbonate of ammonia or some other stimulant. It may be well also to give sulphite of soda and chlorate of potash. The animals should be fed on easily digested food in the form of slops, and milk should be freely given. The hyposulphite of soda and chlorate of potash should be given to the well hogs when they have been exposed to the risk of contagion. Before closing, I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to Frank S. Billings, Director of the Patho-biological Laboratory of the State of Nebraska, for the facts and inspiration of this article. T. A. HARRIS, M. D.

Parkersburg, W. Va.

THE DRY-EARTH CLOSET SYSTEM.

Very few of the towns and villages of our State are blessed with a system of underground sewers, which make possible the use of water closets supplied with all the modern improvements; in consequence our people are forced to the old fashioned privy vault or garden house, with all its disagreeable odors and disease spreading gases. Prof. Victor G. Vaughan, in his essay entitled "Healthy Homes and Food for the Working Classes," says: "When there is no system of sewerage, the dry earth closet is the best method of disposing of human excrement; indeed, upon sanitary grounds the dry-earth system is in many respects more desirable than the use of water closets. but the former requires possibly more care than the latter. Economically also the dry earth system will prove the better when it comes into more general use, and the excrement is used as a fertilizer. A dry-earth closet properly kept is free from all noxious gases, and there is no possibility of the drinking-water supply becoming contaminated from it."

There are many patterns of dry-earth closets in use, but the simplest may be made as efficient as the most complicated and costly. A cheap form is made by placing under the seat boxes or drawers lined with galvanized iron. There is placed conveniently a quantity of dry earth, and for each evacuation a small shovel of the earth (from one to two pounds) is thrown in. When the drawers are full they are removed, emptied and replaced. The best earth to use is pulverized clay mixed with about one-third its weight of loam. Ordinary garden soil may be used if dried perfectly. Sitted coal ashes are almost or quite as good as any earth. Moreover, they are generally on hand and to be disposed of in some way. The writer has used for his family a dry-earth closet for three years, and prefers the sifted coal ashes to any kind of earth. With an ordinary family with not more than half a dozen members, it is not necessary to empty the boxes more than once in three or four weeks. Their contents, which if enough soil or ashes has been added, is wholly inodorous and may be emptied upon the

garden. Here it is spaded in during the spring, and as a fertilizer amply repays for the time and trouble that has been taken with it. Several large cities in Europe have adopted the dry-earth system, and the waste is removed by those who desire to use it as a fertilizer.

The patent earth-closets are so arranged that the requisite amount of earth fall into the box in a manner similar to that by which the water-closet is flushed with water.

In case epidemics of any kind are prevailing in the neighborhood, it would be well to throw a handful of chloride of lime into the closet each day. And even when no epidemic prevails, but the weather is very hot. The same quantity of sulphurate of iron (copperas) may be used daily. The cost of this substance is. so small that it may be used freely when needed. Where many are using the closet a vault may be dug beneath the seat and made water-tight with brick nnd cement. Into this should be thrown each day a sufficient quantity of dry earth, and the vault should be thoroughiy cleaned at least once a month.

The ordinary privy-vault, with porous walls, is an abomination. It has caused more deaths in this country than war and famine have produced. The liquid poisons from it filter into wells, while its gaseous exhalations float through the air. People breathe and drink their own excretions and typhoid fever and kindred diseases slay tens of thousands annually. It is safe to say that the privyvault is the origin of the majority of the cases of typhoid fever. As the country becomes more thickly settled the dangers from the privy vault increase, and they should be wholly abandoned. In many places it is the custom to move the privy and cover the contents of the vau`t with a few shovels of dirt as soon as the vault is filled. In this way from one to half a dozen repositories of filth are found in the average village back yard in a few years. Such a consideration is certainly a highly unsanitary one.

The conveniences for attending to the calls of nature in most of our public schools are of the most primitive character. A small building or shed, with a shallow pit, not even walled up, the seats and floors in a filthy condition, the sexes divided by a single board partition. Closets should be located in or in immediate connection with the school building, and when water-closets cannot be used the dry-earth closet should by all means be substituted. With all teachers the keeping of out-houses in a decent condition is a problem that has caused most anxious thought, and decently kept outhouses are the exception not the rule. By proper vigilance on the part of teachers much that is objectionable may be prevented, but with closets located outside of the building it is almost impossible to prevent all.

"Somebody has said that he could judge of the civilization of a people by the condition of their privies." Where would we stand if tested by this standard. What have we? The privyvaults and cesspools are the same authorized by Moses, and have not been improved since the children of Israel crossed Jordan to

the promised land after the exodus. And without any intent of disparaging the sanitary regulations of the translated law-giver must say, after four thousand years of experience, that they are methods of hiding a poison, filling the earth with traps and snares to destroy those who follow us; that the germs of pestilence and death thus planted and cultured, carrying yearly victims to untimely graves, is the reproach of the system, and mankind cries aloud to be spared. The theory of the earth-closet is very simple, and easy of adoption. Instead of hiding away in pits and sinks, traps and snares for the unwary, the giant is strangled in its cradle by constant watchfulness and disinfectants.

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