Treatment. Bleed copiously; then administer an emetic. A decoction of camomile flowers will be safest; though a sufficient dose of tartar emetic will be far more certain. After this, reduce for a few days the amount of the animal’s food, and administer a small portion of nitre and sulphur in each morning’s meal.
MANGE.
This cutaneous affection owes its existence to the presence of a minute insect, called acarus scabiei, or mange-fly, which burrows beneath the cuticle, and occasions much irritation and annoyance in its progress through the skin.
Its symptoms are sufficiently well known, consisting of scabs, blotches, and sometimes multitudes of minute pustules on different parts of the body. If neglected, these symptoms become aggravated; the disease spreads rapidly over the entire surface of the skin, and if allowed to proceed on its course unchecked, will before long produce deep-seated ulcers and malignant sores, until the whole carcass of the affected animal becomes a mass of corruption.
The cause is to be looked for in dirt, accompanied by hot-feeding. Hogs, however well and properly kept, will occasionally become affected with this disease from contagion. Few diseases are more easily propagated by contact than mange. The introduction of a single affected pig into an establishment may, in one night, cause the seizure of scores of others. No foul-skinned pigs, therefore, should be introduced into the piggery; indeed, it would be an excellent precaution to wash every animal newly purchased with a strong solution of chloride of lime.
Treatment. If the mange is but of moderate violence, and not of very long standing, the best mode is to wash the animal, from snout to tail, leaving no portion of the body uncleansed, with soft soap and water. Place him in a dry and clean sty, which is so situated as to command a constant supply of fresh air, without, at the same time, an exposure to cold or draught; furnish a bed of clean, fresh straw. Reduce his food, both in quality and quantity; let boiled or steamed roots, with butter-milk, or dairy-wash take the place of any food of a heating or inflammatory character. Keep him without food for five or six hours, and then give to a hog of average size two ounces of Epsom salts in a warm bran mash—to be increased or diminished, of course, as the animal’s size may require. This should be previously mixed with a pint of warm water, and added to about half a gallon of warm bran mash, and it will act as a gentle purgative. Give in every meal afterward one table-spoonful of flour of sulphur, and as much nitre as will cover a dime, for from three days to a week, according to the state of the disease. When the scabs begin to heal, the pustules to retreat, and the fiery sores to fade, a cure may be anticipated.
When the above treatment has been practised for fourteen days, without effecting a cure, prepare the following: train oil, one pint; oil of tar, two drachms; spirits of turpentine, two drachms; naphtha, one drachm; with as much flour of sulphur as will form the foregoing into a thick paste. Rub the animal previously washed with this mixture; let no portion of the hide escape. Keep the hog dry and warm after this application, and allow it to remain on his skin for three days. On the fourth day wash him again with soft soap, adding a small quantity of soda to the water. Dry him well afterward, and let him remain as he is, having again changed his bedding, for a day or so; continue the sulphur and nitre as before. Almost all cases of mange, however obstinate, will, sooner or later, yield to this treatment. After he is convalescent, whitewash the sty, and fumigate it by placing a little chloride of lime in a cup, or other vessel, and pouring a little vitriol upon it. In the absence of vitriol, boiling water will answer nearly as well.