INVESTIGATIONS OF THE BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 623 
to the disease cannot be taken from him on that account. 
And so when a germ is isolated and described as carefully as 
was the hog cholera bacillus by the Bureau of Animal Indus¬ 
try, when its effects on various animals and its biologic char¬ 
acters are made known, the investigators ought not and cannot 
be cheated ought of due credit when their conclusions are 
confirmed by competent scientists. The value of investiga¬ 
tions is shown by their fruits ; and, if the conclusions are 
proved to be correct, the methods may in the end turn out to 
be as satisfactory as those used by that other class of investi¬ 
gators whose chief object in life is to assail and embarrass the 
workers who are building up science and advancing the 
interests of their profession. 
We will now turn to Frosch’s report and see what there 
is of importance which sustains or conflicts with the reports 
of the Bureau. His most important conclusion is that “ the 
bacterium of Salmon’s hog cholera and that of Billings’ swine 
plague are identical and that the same is to be looked upon 
as the cause of the American swine plague.” That is to say, 
the bacterium sent to Koch by Billings in 1889 was identical 
with the hog cholera bacterium described in the Bureau 
reports for 1885 and 1886. 
There was nothing unexpected in this conclusion, for we 
already knew from the report of the Commission of Inquiry 
appointed by the Department of Agriculture, and from the 
investigations of Prof. Welch, of Johns-Hopkins University, 
that Billings at this period had adopted our hog cholera germ 
as the cause of his swine plague. The surprise came when 
Billings placed our hog cholera germ into the hands of the 
commission as the cause of his swine plague, after he had so 
long denied the existence of that germ. 
If we assume for the present, notwithstanding the denials 
in his report, that this writer had been working with the hog 
cholera germ during the first two years of his investigations, 
that is from July, 1886, to July, 1888, then it becomes a point 
of great interest to learn whether Frosch was able to identify 
the germ from our description. If he could not then there 
might be some excuse for Billings’ frequent denials of its ex- 
