30 
D. P. YONKERMAN. 
ing or sowing fresh infusions of sterilized boullion, and so on 
indefinitely. This assertion is contradicted by the above-men¬ 
tioned experimentally confirmed conclusions of Koch with regard 
to the bacillus of anthrax losing its virulence after being carried 
in successive generations through some fifty cultivations. 
This, like the majority of Pasteur’s assertions, needs the con¬ 
firmation of exact test experiments. 
With regard to the germ of swine plague, our own and other 
experiences go to show that no such constancy of virulence or 
attenuation can be depended upon through any large number of 
successive artificial cultivation, but as said before, it will be 
necessary to discover some one among the smaller animals (or in 
case of necessity, by the use of young pigs) that has a very exces¬ 
sive degree of susceptibility to the germ of swine plague, and in 
which it soon acquires the highest degree of virulency by being 
passed successively through a small number of said animals, in 
order to obtain material which can be relied upon to manufacture 
vaccines from. This is not the difficult task it appears to be. 
VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE. 
FORENSIC MEDICINE. 
By D. P. Yonkerman, Cleveland, O. 
The importance of this subject is so great that I attempt to 
write upon it with no little hesitation and fear, knowing that I 
shall be far from able to do it anything like justice. But trust¬ 
ing in your forbearance, and hoping that something I may vague¬ 
ly touch upon may give light to some of you, or, at least raise 
inquiry whereby benefit to the profession and ourselves may result, 
induces me to undertake at least a synopsis of this vast and im¬ 
portant subject. I therefore pray your more than ordinary atten¬ 
tion to the subject matter herein contained. 
It were well for us at the outset to grasp the impotance and 
responsibility of our task. Your first day in practice, your first 
call, may bring you face to face with a medico-legal case requiring 
all our thought and acumen, powers of observation, knowledge of 
