FEBRUARY 8, 1884.] 
In his second report,! Dr. Detmers does not seem 
to have materially modified the views referred to 
above, though he had been studying the disease dur- 
ing the whole of another year. In discussing ac- 
cepted classifications in his supplemental report, he 
says, — 
** All, however, seem to agree, that those Schizomycetes 
classed by them under the name of ‘ Bacillus’ do not form clusters 
or colonies (rasen, zoogloea-masses, gliacoccus, orcocoglia), and 
do not undergo metamorphoses from globular to rod-shaped 
Schizomycetes, two things decidedly characteristic of the micro- 
scopic parasites of the Schizomycetes family as found in swine- 
plague; consequently the name adopted, Bacillus, was not well 
chosen and is not suitable.’ 2 
As I have shown elsewhere,? the two points re- 
ferred to would not exclude an organism from the 
genus Bacillus. The best-known bacilli certainly 
develop from resting spores of an oval form, as seen 
under the microscope: some of these spores approach 
very closely to the globular; and, if they should be per- 
fect spheres, the classification would not be affected 
in the least. The other point—that an organism, 
multiplying as a micrococcus, after a time develops 
into a rod-shaped body —is an idea, that, although it 
is persistently pressed in some quarters, has never 
been accepted by the best authorities, and is no more 
true of the organism in question than of other forms 
of micrococci, as I have assured myself by long 
series of cultivations. The fact of greatest impor- 
tance to the present inquiry is, that up to this time 
Dr. Detmers considered the organism of swine-plague 
to be rod-shaped in its developed form. This sup- 
plemental report, in which the first doubts are ex- 
pressed in regard to the organism being a real 
bacillus, was dated six weeks after the appearance 
oi Mégnin’s paper, and was not distributed for seven 
or eight months subsequent to this. It is to be re- 
membered, also, that in none of the above investiga- 
tions were any sufficient precautions taken to exclude 
atmospheric germs from the liquids examined, and 
no pure cultivations were made. It was therefore 
a matter of considerable doubt whether the organisms 
described were really in the blood as it circulated 
in the living animal, or whether they were intro- 
duced post mortem. 
The third report of Dr. Detmers bears the date of 
Dec. 4, 1880.4 In this it was stated that the ‘‘ swine- 
plague Schizophytae present themselves in different 
shape and form.” The simplest form is that of a 
micrococcus. The second form is bispherical: the 
Spherical cell has grown and become contracted, or 
na in the middle, forming two united gran- 
ules. 
“These bispherical Schizophytae are always more or less nu- 
merous, are either at rest or moving, and usually provided at 
one end with a flagellum or post-flagellum, which, however, 
is so exceedingly fine that I have never seen it except with the 
she homogeneous immersion objective of Tolles, and an ampli- 
fication of over 1,500 diameters, and then only while the Schizo- 
phytae was moving.” 
1 Department of agriculture. Special report, No. 22, pp. 
13-67. 
2 Loc. cit , p. 60. * Special report, No. 34, p. 68. 
4 Special report, No. 34, pp. 153-195. > Loe: cit., p. 187. 
SCIENCE. , 157 
C 
He then goes on to describe the formation of a 
chain of bispherical elements, and mentions the 
existence of zoogloea masses as well. He had not 
yet given up the rod or bacillus form: for he states 
that in the blood and pleural exudation, when a day 
or two old, and sometimes while yet fresh, rod- 
shaped bacteria can be observed; and it appears 
probable that the same constitute another form of 
the swine-plague Schizophytae.+ 
The same volume contained a report of mine in 
which are detailed certain experiments and observa- 
tions on the schizophytes peculiar to this disease. 
In this report was given a description of the first 
successful attempts, as I believe, to demonstrate what 
-micro-organisms, if any, existed in the blood and 
other liquids of living hogs sick with swine-plague. 
To keep the liquids to be examined free from all sus- 
picion of contamination, vacuum tubes were pre- 
pared by drawing to a point the two ends of a small 
piece of glass tubing about a fifth of an inch in 
diameter. A drop or two of water was then as- 
pirated into this tube, boiled to secure a vacuum, 
and the ends immediately sealed. ‘The tube was now 
heated to redness to destroy any bacteria spores that 
might still be in it, and it was ready for filling with 
the virulent liquid. In use, a very sick hog was 
killed, a vein laid bare, sometimes before the animal 
was quite dead, the vacuum tube was passed through 
the flame of an alcohol lamp, the finely drawn-out 
end forced into the vein and broken across its walls, 
when it would immediately fill, and was sealed in 
the lamp as soon as withdrawn.” It is plain that 
such tubes could be preserved indefinitely for exam- 
ination without any suspicion of atmospheric con- 
tamination. The only change that could occur would 
be due to a continued multiplication, —a kind of 
cultivation of the organisms which had existed in 
the blood of the living animal. 
Three separate outbreaks of swine-plague at widely 
separated points were investigated; and in every one, 
I found, by the method of study just referred to, 
that the virulent liquids contained micrococci, sin- 
gle, and in chains and clusters, but never rod forms, 
except in those cases where the tubes did not fill 
well, or where they were imperfectly sealed. And 
‘blood from the most perfect of these tubes, which 
contained no visible organisms but micrococci, pro- 
duced unmistakable and severe cases of swine-plague 
in inoculated animals.2 These were the first experi- 
ments in which the virulent material, preserved free 
from suspicion of atmospheric contamination, was 
shown to contain but a single species of schizophytes; 
and they were consequently the first which indicated 
any connection between the micrococci and the essen- 
tial cause of this disease. 
In his fourth report, Dr. Detmers states positively 
that some of the swine-plague organisms develop a 
lasting spore, and are changed into a helobacterium.* 
But there is no account of any measures adopted to 
decide which of the forms observed in the impure 
liquids examined had existed in the body of the 
1 Loe. cit., p.188.  % Tbid.,p.22.  % Lbid., pp. 23, 24. 
4 Department of agriculture. Annual report, 1881 and 1882. 
