518 
DR. BILLINGS VINDICATED. 
periments published in the reports of the Bureau of Animal 
Industry, (1885 to 1887-8) do not correspond to the scientific 
conditions necessary to the establishment of a new infectious 
disease, in a manner to be desired. 
It is by no means necessary for me to repeat what I said 
in my previous publication, as Smith admits it, in regard to 
the report of 1885, and on the other hand, the superficial in¬ 
vestigations described in the other reports display so little 
exclusion and exact employment of Koch’s methods to corres¬ 
pond with the importance of the assertion of the appearance 
of a new exciter of infection (germ), closely related to the 
swine plague. 
I might here call attention to the fact that even in the work 
of Smith, described in his article in this issue of the Zeitschrift, 
the method for differentiating the two germs, the employment 
of the hanging drop, is not sufficiently reliable. 
Smith also seems to complain that I have considered the 
mentioned reports of the Bureau of Animal Industry too 
closely after the standpoint of to-day. Even though we may 
have to-day new ideas of what a pure culture should be, or sub¬ 
stantially other methods of obtaining the same, than formerly, 
still it was perfectly justifible to prove the case as to how the 
earlier results of the Bureau correspond with these newer 
ideas. 
As shown in my previous publication, it is evident 
from the report of the Bureau that at that time Koch’s methods 
were well known there, and I do not think that it is demand¬ 
ing too much of the bacteriologists of the Bureau to assume 
that they were acquainted with the methods as published in 
their reports. 
As to the slur upon Billings’ work in Smith’s publication, 
I can safely leave it to the former investigator to consider 
them. I have only to refer here to his inoculation experi¬ 
ments in swine, to which I am inclined to give full credit as 
reliable evidence, because Billings emphasizes the control of 
the pure cultures used in the same by other cultivating tests. 
The number of these experiments was sufficiently great to 
demonstrate the infectiousness of the germs and their specific 
