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Germ of the Southern Cattle Plague. 125 
over the surface of the gelatine as a delicate cuticle, but, as these 
cultures are made by puncturing the gelatine with a wire, the germs 
are carried into that substance by the wire. Here we observed that 
everywhere the wire has left a germ in its passage through the gel- 
atine, that a small colony develops, giving to the puncture the ap- 
pearance of a delicate thread with knots along its course. In the 
end these colonies unite, and give the puncture a ragged-edged ap- 
pearance. As the germs of the German swine plague, and rabbit- 
septiceemia, and the “ wild Seuche” all do the same thing, Hueppe 
asserts them to be the same organism. Hueppe has tried to claim 
that all these diseases were one and the same, a mistaken view, as I 
have tried to show. 
I have now to chronicle the first serious error, a genuine mistake 
of carelessness, from undue haste, that I can charge myself with 
during my investigations of the two micro-etiological organisms 
here considered. 
Above it was said that on October 2d two beef-infusion gelatine 
tubes were inoculated from pure cultivations of the germ of the 
Southern Cattle Plague, and in the local papers the following 
remarks were published : 
“ Now it became interesting to see how this Southern Cattle- 
Plague germ would deport itse!f in this gelatine, because it cannot 
be distinguished from that of hog cholera under the microscope, or 
on agar agar, or in bouillon. That it can be by its growth on 
potatoes has been already noted. Hence, on Sunday, October 2d, 
gelatine tubes were inoculated. You can judge of my surprise on 
seeing that this Cattle-Plague germ could be at once distinguished 
from those of hog cholera standing beside it. The germ of the 
former had caused the gelatine to become fluid to the bottom of the 
puncture in twenty-four hours, which is quite rapid work.” 
The above was scarcely in the hands of the readers of the two 
journals before I began to have grave doubts of the correctness of 
my observations, simply because all other known germs belonging to 
this “belted” group, and the cause of extra organismal septicemia, 
do not cause the gelatine to become fluid. 
In order that others may profit by an error which is unpardon- 
able on my part, I will briefly tell how it came about. At the time 
I had just twenty agar agar cultivations of the germs of the 
Southern Cattle Plague, which I looked upon as pure, and which 
represented the outbreak at Tekamah and Roca, my inoculated 
