INVESTIGATIONS OF THE BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 697 
and as Frosch remarks “ on the very remarkable ground that 
th e post-mortem lesions found in the rabbit were not like those 
he was accustomed to see in pigs.” Detmers and Billings 
were both positive on two points—first, that their swine- 
plagues were identical, and, second, that this germ, discov¬ 
ered by the Bureau was entirely unlike the germ of their 
disease. 
Detmers said : “ I cannot identify it with swine-plague. If 
it is identical with it, then I must say the disease I heretofore 
pronounced swine-plague, or, as the farmers call it, hog-chol¬ 
era, must be bogus ; that is, something else. I am compelled 
to pronounce the disease of which the rabbit died a fatal sep¬ 
tic disease entirely different from swine-plague.” Again, he 
says of the disease produced by this germ, “ It is a septic 
germ, readily kills rabbits and causes septicaemia, but has no 
connection with the disease in question. It is not for me to 
say where Dr. Salmon obtained it, or from where he may 
have imported it ” (Billings’ report on Swine-Plague, pp. 249 
and 257). 
Billings himself took the same ground, for he remarked: 
“ Swine-plague itself being a septicasmia, may it not be possible 
that Mr. Salmon has accidentally dropped upon some kind of 
a septic organism capable of producing the same lesions? 
“ This question has been frequently in my mind of late, 
for if not so, I do not know how to answer for all Mr. Sal¬ 
mon’s wonderfully positive experiments. If not so, then 
these experiments were never made, and the whole thing is a 
concocted farce, or else he has been secretly using the real 
germ and showing people this other thing. I am determined 
to force this question to such an issue that the real facts must 
come out sooner or later, for I, as repeatedly said, have no 
fears but what my own work will stand every test” (L. c., p. 
249). 
Here are the two positions, which side was correct ? The 
investigations of von Esmarch, Frosch, Bunzl-Federn, Rac- 
cuglia, Afanassieff and others leave no doubt as to the reality 
and pathogenic effect of our hog-cholera germ. Billings him¬ 
self has since adopted it, but what microbe did he and Det- 
