MEAT INSPECTION AND ACTINOMYCOSIS. 
11 
These short extracts are certainly valuable, as they show 
us the moderation of opinion of some of our best authorities 
on actinomycosis. 
After having exhausted his attempts to show all the bad 
features of actinomycosis of man and animals, Dr. Williams 
becomes quite comical and produces the following tirade : 
“ A long list of the leading scientists of the day might be quoted, who believe 
in the contagiousness of actinomycosis, such as Bollinger, Ponfick, Johne, 
Friedberger, Frohner, Rosenbach, Bizzozero, Lindquist, Heller, Peroncito, 
Ochsner, Crookshank, Fleming, Liautard, Law T and others, almost without num¬ 
ber. In fact it seems, in so far as your chairman has been able to learn, that con¬ 
tributors alike to standard and current veterinary literature of a recent date all 
are agreed that the affection is contagious. We understand that Prof. {Schwarz¬ 
kopf and other dissenters have given voice to their theories and deductions 
through the columns of the agricultural or live stock press, and avoided placing 
their views in form or place where it would come within proper range of scientific 
criticism. We trust that now, for once, Prof. Schwarzkopf and his colleagues 
will present their non-contagious theory of actinomycosis before this convention, 
from a scientific standpoint, and permit their arguments to be weighed upon a 
strictly scientific as well as practical basis. We desire that Prof. Schwarzkopf 
should fully explain his statement at our last meeting that he predicated his be¬ 
lief of the non-contagiousness of actinomycosis on his theoretical studies, and his 
practical work in the great abattoirs of Berlin. What great veterinarians of 
Berlin taught our fellow-committeeman that actinomycosis was non-contagious 
while such Germans as Johne, Ponfick, Rosenbach, Friedberger and such veter¬ 
inarians of the great Berlin Thierartzlichen Hochschule as Frohner, unitedly and 
without fear or apology denominate the disease as infectious ? What facts has 
he learned in the slaughter-house of Berlin that demonstrate the non-transmissa- 
bility of the disease ?” 
To this I have the following to say : Bollinger and Fried¬ 
berger were mv teachers and neither of them have ever said 
that actinomycosis is contagious, which may be said to their 
honor. Ponfick, Johne, Frohner, Peroncito, have said that 
actinomycosis is infectious, by which they mean that the mi¬ 
cro-organism has its natural origin outside the animal body on 
vegetable life, but if introduced into the body accidentally 
produces a diseases. Crookshank and Fleming have similar 
opinions. Rosenbach, Bizzozero, Lindquist, Heller are un¬ 
known to me. Liautard and Law have pronounced the dis¬ 
ease contagious, for which I have no explanation to offer ex¬ 
cept that 1 believe that Prof. Liautard holds a different opinion 
to-day. 
