406 
W. L. WILLIAMS. 
be sufficient to state that the loss is variable, though always very 
serious, and is seldom less than fifty per cent., rising even to 
seventy,” a remarkably severe loss for a disease frequently 
benign. 
In no outbreaks is there a loss of less than forty to fifty per 
cent, mentioned, whereas if there be a benignant and a malignant 
form, the one passing into the other by imperceptible gradation, 
we should expect a like gradation of losses, instead of nothing in 
the benign and fifty to seventy per cent, in the malignant. 
Quoting a Bohemian writer, Fleming makes the incubative 
stage from eight to sixty days; while citing Haubner, writing of 
the benign form, he makes the time three to six days, thus appa¬ 
rently sanctioning the idea that a benign attack of a disease devel¬ 
ops far more quickly after infection than a malignant one, although 
this benignant form is essentially the same as the first stage of the 
malignant. 
Again, under the head of Exanthema of the Genital Organs , 
Fleming describes a distinct exanthematous disease, without making 
any marked distinction between it and his benignant type of ma- 
ladie du coit, and mentions, as synonyms, names taken from his 
“ Synonyms of Maladie du Coit.” 
Professors Williams and Law follow briefly the description of 
Fleming, emphasizing the pustular eruptions on the external gen¬ 
itals, as described by Fleming in his exanthematous affection, and 
in his benign maladie du coit, and both are silent regarding the 
wholly distinct benign exanthematous disease, which is far more 
widespread and common than maladie du coit, is characterized by 
abundant pustular or vesicular eruptions upon the external genitals, 
which appear in successive crops, heal rapidly, and disappear spon¬ 
taneously, or readily yield to simple local treatment in three to ten 
weeks, and rarely, if ever, ending fatally. 
This disease has been fully described in my report of an out¬ 
break at Kempton, Ill., which I investigated by your orders in 
October last, and which is undoubtedly the disease which most 
authors confound with the malignant disease under consideration. 
While investigating the outbreak in De Witt County, I had 
occasion to see a young roadster stallion, property of B. F. Hick- 
