SWINEPOX. VARIOLA SUILLA.
Variola appears to be rather more frequent in swine than in goats. Ficanus as quoted by Joubert saw it in 1567, contracted it was supposed from smallpox patients. It was noted by Ramazini in 1690, by Stegman in 1697, and later by Gerlach and others. In 1891 517 cases were reported in Hungary. It is said to be derived from man by the use of bed straw for litter and from sheep by occupying the same stall. It can be transmitted experimentally from pig to pig, from pigs to goats, and from goats back to pigs (Gerlach). It is also claimed to pass from the pig to man (Freidberger and Fröhner). Young pigs are especially subject to it and one attack confers immunity for the future.
Symptoms. After a febrile condition of variable length, but usually of a high intensity, red spots appear on the head, neck, chest, belly or inside the arms and thighs, at first like flea bites, but passing through the stage of papule to become vesicular on the sixth day. About the ninth or tenth day they become purulent, and in two or three days more a black, concave, circular crust has formed which is soon detached. The eruption may be local or general, discrete or confluent and the issue of the case will depend much on this character. In exceptional cases the eruption invades the mouth, eye, throat, stomach, or intestines. Croker notes the accompaniment of a fatal lobular catarrhal pneumonia.
It must be carefully distinguished from urticaria, eczema, and eruptions due to pustulating irritants.
Treatment is in the main the same as for sheep, care being taken to secure perfect cleanliness, pure air, dry clean litter, easily digested food, and protection from crowding, undue heat, cold or wet. Buttermilk and other acidulous and diuretic drinks are recommended, and careful attention to the state of the bowels throughout.
Prevention is still more important, and better than any treatment would be the most rigorous measures for its extinction along the lines laid down for sheep pox. Whether the infection has been derived from man or sheep it must be looked on as eminently dangerous to the class of animal from which it originated, and every available means used for its extinction.