Page:The Hog.djvu/144

142 one animal to another of a different species, and even to the human being.

In Austria, if mange appears in the hog within eight days after the sale, it is presumed to have existed at the time of the said sale, and the animal is returnable to the vendor; and when it can be proved that he was aware of the unsoundness, he not only has to return the purchase-money, but also to indemnify the purchaser for any loss or inconvenience he may have sustained, besides paying a fine equal to one-tenth of the value of the animal.

That the actual disease, namely, the scab and the irritation, arises from the presence and proceedings of the acari, there can be no shadow of doubt; but the question is, whence do these acari arise? Are they the product of some morbid state of the skin, arising from constitutional derangement, or created by miasma or effluvia? We find mange in animals that are fed on too stimulating food, we also find it in others that are neglected and badly fed. How can these contradictions be reconciled? Here is a vast field for scientific research and experiment. As every grain of earth, and every drop of water, and every particle of air, is peopled with living beings, developed by certain causes, it is by no means an improbable theory to suppose that the germs of the acari may exist in a dormant state in the skin, and only be called into actual life by some of the vitiating influences which neglect or mismanagement produces, and once existing, they follow the law of every created being, and propagate and multiply, and pass from one animal to another either by actual contact, or by the intermediation of some other substance which both had touched. We admit, however, that this is mere theory, and call upon our professional brethren to aid us by their researches in our endeavors to discover the actual truth.

This is rather a sub-cutaneous than an actual disease of the skin, consisting in a multitude of small watery pustules developed between the fat and the skin, and indeed scattered throughout the cellular tissue and adipose matter. It has, by many, been regarded as a milder form of leprosy; and so far as our present limited knowledge will allow us to judge, this supposition appears by no means an erroneous one.

The external appearances attending it are the development of reddish patches, somewhat raised above the surface of the skin, on the groin, the arm-pits, and the inside of the thighs at first, and subsequently on other parts of the body. The attendant symptoms are acceleration of the pulse, heat of the skin, cough, discharge from the nostrils, loss of appetite, nausea, swelling of the eyelids, feebleness