562 D. E. SALMON. 
swine plague for the purpose of creating confusion,” says Dr. 
Peters, “ why was a septic pneumonia of the pig termed 
4 swine plague ’ unless for the purpose of causing further con¬ 
fusion ? When, as we have seen, the disease is not confined 
to swine, but a little careless [careful?] study would have 
shown that the pigs could easily communicate it in other 
species of animals.” As we have already explained, we called 
the American disease swine plague partly because an appar¬ 
ently identical disease in Germany, caused by an apparently 
identical germ, was known the world over as swine plague. 
That disease in Germany was described by competent men, 
and was accepted by practically the whole scientific world as 
properly described and named. If our disease is a septic 
pneumonia, the German swine plague is a septic pneumonia ; 
if our disease is communicable to other species of animals, the 
same has been recognized as true of the German swine plague. 
And yet no scientist has attacked Loeffler or Schutz as being 
guilty of any impropriety in calling their disease swine 
plague. It has been reserved for Dr. Peters to make the dis¬ 
covery that it is a gross error to name a septic disease of pigs 
communicable to other animals swine plague; but why does 
he confine his remarks to the Bureau of Animal Industry, 
when we were following the example of the distinguished 
European scientists to whom reference has just been made ? 
Dr. Peters says: “ I think that Jeffries’ work is particular¬ 
ly accurate and very valuable, and am surprised that it has 
not attracted a great deal of attention, although it does not 
appear to have done so.” I am ready to agree that Jeffries’ 
paper was a valuable and timely contribution to the literature 
of swine diseases, but how does it happen that Dr. Peters, 
while so mercilessly criticising the work of the Bureau and 
praising the work of Dr. Billings, fails to point out that Jef¬ 
fries absolutely disproves Billings’assertions that (i) the germ 
of the American hog cholera is identical with that of the Ger¬ 
man swine plague ; that (2) the germ of hog cholera described 
by us in 1885 does not exist; that (3) there is only one com¬ 
municable disease of swine in the United States, and that (4) 
a disease identical with the German swine plague does not 
