Itch may be cured by anointing with equal parts of lard and brimstone. Rubbing-posts, and a running stream to wallow in are preventives.
The Kidney Worm is frequently fatal; and always produces weakness of the loins and hind legs, usually followed by entire prostration. A pig thus far gone, is hardly worth the trouble of recovering, even where practicable.
Preventives, are general thrift, a range in a good pasture, and a dose of half a pint of wood-ashes every week or fortnight in their food. A small quantity of saltpetre, spirits of turpentine, or tar, will effect the same object. When attacked, apply spirits of turpentine to the loins, and administer calomel carefully; or give half a tablespoonful of copperas daily for one or two weeks.
Blind Staggers.
This is generally confined to pigs, and manifests itself in foaming at the mouth, rearing on their hind legs, champing and grinding their teeth, and apparent blindness. The proper remedies are bleeding and purging freely, and these frequently fail. Many nostrums have been suggested, but few are of any utility. It is important to keep the issues on the inside of the fore-legs, just below the knee, thoroughly cleansed.
The tails of young pigs frequently drop or rot off, which is attended with no further disadvantage to the animal than the loss of the member. The remedies are, to give a little brimstone or sulphur in the food of the dam; or rub oil or grease daily on the affected parts. It may be detected by a roughness or scabbiness at the point where separation is likely to occur.
Bleeding.—The most convenient mode, is from an artery just above the knee, on the inside of the fore-arm. It may be drawn more copiously from the roof of the mouth. The flow of blood may usually be stopped, by applying a sponge or cloth with cold water.
The diseases of swine, though not numerous, are formidable, and many of them soon become fatal. They have not been the subject of particular scientific study, and most of the remedies applied, are rather the result of casual or hap-hazard suggestion, than of well-digested inference, from long-continued and accurate observation.