546 
EDITORIAL. 
Dr. Bowhill’s paper announces that he has found in cases of swine fever, 
in England, a bacterium identical with Billings’ swine-plague germs, and that 
he has sent specimens to Billings, who confirms his discovery. 
Here we have two excellent investigators, one in the United States and one 
in Germany, confirming the identity of Billings’ swine-plague germ and Sal¬ 
mon’s hog cholera germ, and each one acting independently of the other, while 
the third finds the same germ as the cause of the English swine fever. 
Dr. Billings boldly announces that he found his germ of swine-plague in 
July, 1886, among the first pigs that he examined in Nebraska, which had die'd 
of the disease. 
Salmon, in his report for 1884, discovered a micrococcus as the cause of 
what he then called swine-plague. In his report the next year he says it is due 
to an oval, motile bacterium. Later in some of his replies to his critics he at¬ 
tributes the discovery of this organism to his assistant, Dr. Th. Smith. Dr. 
Frosch says: “ This circumstance not only readily explains the intrinsic contra¬ 
diction of the reports for 1884 and 1885, but also seems to have influenced Sal¬ 
mon’s further investigations.” 
In a special report of the Bureau of Animal Industry upon “Hog Cholera: 
Its History, Nature and Treatment,” issued in 1889, there is a short history of 
the investigations of swine diseases made in the United States, but we do not 
find any mention of the name of Billings, although he discovered at once the bac¬ 
terium for which the Chief of the Bureau of Animal Industry had been searching 
for years, and which he probably would not have found for some time if he had 
not had the help of an assistant whom he was not generous enough to credit 
with the discovery, and so let it pass as his own. 
In the report of the Bureau of Animal Industry for 1886, page 20, we find 
the following statement: 
“In view of the results of investigations which have shown the existence 
of two distinct infectious diseases of swine, perhaps of equal virulence and 
distribution, a change in the nomenclature becomes necessary in order to avoid 
any confusion in the future. Since these two diseases have been considered as 
one in the past, and the name swine-plague and hog-cholera have been applied 
indiscriminately, we prefer to retain both names, with a more restricted mean¬ 
ing, using the name hog-cholera for the disease described in the last report as 
swine-plague, which is produced by a motile bacterium, and applying the name 
swine-plague to the other disease, the chief seat of which is in the lungs. This 
change is the more desirable since recent investigations have shown that the latter 
disease exists in Germany, where it is called swine-plague (schweine-seuche.)” 
The following questions propound themselves to us after reading the above : 
After speaking of the disease as swine-plague for several years did the 
Chief of the Bureau of Animal Industry call Billings’ swine-plague, “Hog 
Cholera ” for the sake of creating confusion ? (Thus while apparently ignoring 
him, at the same time paying him the greatest possible compliment in the power 
of one man who seems to so admire another.) 
If the name ‘ ‘ Hog-cholera ” was not used in place of swine-plague for the 
purpose of creating confusion, why was a septic pneumonia of the pig termed 
“Swine-plague,” unless it was for the purpose of causing still further confu- 
