484 
EDITORIAL. 
These statements are irreconcilable with the experimental evidence which I 
published in 1878 (Reports of the Medical Officer of the Local Government 
Board for 1877-78), and with the observations made also on the disease naturally 
occurring amongst swine. I have shown in that report, by numerous experiments, 
that by inoculation or by feeding of healthy pigs with particles of the diseased 
lung, or of the ulcers of the large intestine or of the peritoneal exudation, the 
same disease is produced ; from the post mortem examination of such experimen¬ 
tal animals, as well as those that had become naturally affected with the dis¬ 
ease, I have shown that it is chiefly the lung, next also the large intestine, which 
is subject to the disease, and I have therefore spoken of it as infectious pneumo¬ 
enteritis. By injection as well as ingestion of matter taken from the ulcers of 
the large intestine, I have produced in healthy pigs the typical disease of the large 
intestine and also of the lungs; furthec, by injection of matter taken from the 
diseased lung I have produced in healthy pigs the typical disease, both of the 
large intestine and of the lung. There can be no question, from an inspection of 
my records of post mortem examinations of these experimental animals ( l . c. pp. 
183-207, experiments i.-xxii.), about the unity of the pulmonary and intestinal 
disease. An appearance to which I have drawn attention in the above report, is 
the haemorrhage in the endocardium, chiefly of the left ventricle about the mitral 
valve (l. c. plate xxii., fig. xxxi.) These haemorrhages were seldom missed on 
post mortem examination of the animals affected naturally or experimentally, 
either with lung disease, with simultaneous intestinal ulcerations, or with lung 
disease only. During this year I have had the opportunity, thanks to Mr. C. 
Humphrey, veterinary inspector in Wandsworth, to notice an isolated epidemic 
in swine-fever that had occurred in the farm belonging to and supplying the 
county asylum at Wandsworth. This epidemic is instructive because it occurred 
in a positively isolated locality ; that is to say, a locality that does not stand in 
any communication, either by the attendants or by purchases and introduction of 
fresh pigs, with the neighborhood. On this farm the number of pigs generally 
present is just over 100, when fresh farrows about 200. The supply of pork, ow¬ 
ing to the large number of inmates in the asylum, is very considerable, and is all 
derived from the farm. 
The last outbreak of swine-fever in this farm occurred in April, 1886, and 
since that time till March, 1888, no case had occurred. In this year’s epidemic 
the first case was noticed on March 8. Mr. Humphrey, on post mortem examina¬ 
tion, pronounced it a case of swine-fever, the intestine and lungs showing the 
typical disease. Till the middle of April, 61 pigs had been examined, and found 
affected with swine-fever. Of them only 31 had the intestinal disease (ulcers of 
large intestine), in 30 the intestine was free of disease, but all 61 had the typ¬ 
ical disease of the lungs, and most of those examined in this direction had the 
haemorrhages in the endocardium of the left ventricle. Now, it is extremely 
unlikely that the first pig had two different diseases, and it is also very unlikely 
that 31 pigs, i. e., those in which lungs and intestine were affected, had two dis¬ 
eases, while 30, i. <?., those in which the disease of the intestine was absent, and 
only the lungs were found affected, had the single disease. These observations 
harmonize well with those recorded in 1877-78, viz., while the lung affection is 
constantly present, that of the intestine is absent in a number of cases. Neither 
