General Diseases. 303 
“ After removing the flooring and opening the drains, it 
was deemed advisable, considering the condition of the 
walls of the house, not to repair it, but to build another on 
a‘ different site. After a considerable time, both the new 
kennel and the one which remained, and into which the 
dogs from the old one had been removed, were again 
occupied ; and with no bad results, the disease having 
ceased a few days after the kennel where it first appeared 
had been vacated. 
“T have purposely refrained from commenting upon, or 
drawing any conclusions from these facts; or attempting 
to enter upon the question of the etiology of diphtheria : 
whether we are in all cases to regard it as the result of the 
reception into the animal body of contagion, living, par- 
ticulate, and specific—a true ‘ mycosts,’—or, in many cases, 
to revert to our knowledge of chemistry and chemical laws 
for an explanation of the different phenomena. 
“Circumstances which have occurred, and conditions 
which have been observed, have been stated, in the hope 
that possibly some inquirer in this particular path of re- 
search may find these facts, when collated with others, help- 
ful in shedding a light over what at the present, in some of 
its aspects, is rather obscure.” 
In a leading article in the same journal, on “ The Trans- 
missibility of Diphtheria from Man to the Lower Animals,” 
it is remarked: “We have no strong proof that croup or 
diphtheria is contagious in animals, except the first-named 
disease, which is so in poultry. 
“The relations of diphtheria in animals to the same 
disease in mankind have only been recently definitely 
established ; while the transmission of the malady from one 
species to another has been satisfactorily demonstrated. 
There are certainly no proofs that any relationship exists 
between the malady termed ‘distemper’ in the dog and 
diphtheria, though on occasions they may have prevailed 
coincidently in a district. 
