EDITORIAL. 
51 
change of date thus designated. A shorter time would be insuf¬ 
ficient for the publication of the papers in due season. 
And now the arena is cleared and awaits the entry of the con¬ 
testants for the meed of honorable praise and commendable am¬ 
bition. 
Swine plagues. —Since our esteemed colleague, Professor Wal- 
ley, has given his attention to the subject of the several contagious 
diseases of ruminants, which work such havoc among the victims 
of their attack, and has included them all in a single group under 
the term of “ bovine plagues,” why would it not be a good work 
for some of our friends to perform the same office for the three 
affections of the swine family which have proved so refractory, 
both to sanitary and medical treatment, and so baffling to patho¬ 
logical research, and which prove so destructive, and entail such 
loss to the owners of this species of property throughout the world, 
by bringing them under the common designation placed at the 
head of these remarks, and so descriptive of their character, as 
“ swine plagues ? ” 
It would be no easy task to measure the amount of literature • 
which has been devoted to these diseases, or the countless pages 
of discussion they have elicited, more, probably, in our own coun¬ 
try than among European writers. Indeed, so much has been 
said and so much published upon this theme that it was becoming 
difficult to determine whether any real progress had been accom¬ 
plished by the researches which had been prosecuted, or whether it 
might not be reasonably feared that the darkness which envel- 
\ 
oped the disputed issues was not rather becoming more and more 
dense, and the confusion worse confounded, by a very excess of 
discussion. 
But if pathologists and veterinarians have patiently, if dubi¬ 
ously as well, waited and watched while observation and discovery 
have been in progress, they must at last feel fully satisfied with 
the results which have been secured, and especially by what has 
been accomplished on our own continent.* 
From the aggregate of the opinions which have been expressed 
and from all that can be gathered from the collective views of 
* 
See Review for April. 
