1884.) Discovery of the Germ of Swine-Plague. 1103 
sider anything wrong in my first description beyond the drawings 
of the bacteria. Better lenses, afterwards employed, easily re- 
solved the apparently moniliform rods into coccus-chains. The 
same reports of the commissioner, which contain the results of 
my first researches, also contain Dr. Salmon’s first observations 
on swine-plague, in which he does not make a single reference to 
bacteria as the cause of the disease. 
In the following reports, special report No. 22, and annual re- 
port for 1879, I corrected my mistake as to the appearance and 
the naming of the parasites; while the subsequent report of the 
commissioner, special report No. 34, or annual report for 1880, 
which was published a year later, or two years after I had proved 
Swine-plague to be a bacteritic disease, contains the first account 
of Dr. Salmon’s observations in regard to swine-plague bacteria. 
However ingenious his methods were, however exactly he copied 
Pasteur’s method of experimentation, his results are nowise in 
advance of mine, published respectively one and two years earlier. 
I can safely let the reader estimate the value of his and my claims 
of priority. In my various drawings I have tried to represent 
what I actually saw in the fluids, morbid tissues, etc., of the ani- 
mals, and hence have shown different forms of the bacteria, among 
them Billroth’s helobacteria. I have not seen these forms in my 
cultures, neither have I ever said that the same were proven to be 
related to the disease, however likely that may be. On pages or 
and 62 of special report No. 22, or the corresponding pages of 
annual report for 1879, after quoting from Billroth, I remark : 
“As nearly all these various changes and formations have been 
repeatedly observed, it may de that these club-shaped formations 
or helobacteria of Billroth, which I was inclined to look upon as 
foreign to the disease, are only a higher development, or another 
form of the swine-plague Schizomycetes.” 
Dr. Salmon’s insinuations have no foundation whatever, and 
his accusations that I have confounded the true parasites (diplo- 
cocci) of swine-plague with other bacteria cannot be substantiated 
from my writings. 
Cittcaco, Int., March 2oth, 1884. 
