ETIOLOGICAL MOMENT IN AMERICAN SWINE PLAGUE. 
59 
the various seats of morbid change,” p. 378, report 1878. In sup¬ 
port of the hypothetical etiological connection of these “ micro¬ 
cocci,” which, from the language used, I am led to think Dr. Law 
looked upon as the cause of swine plague, he quotes Dr. Klein 
(Eng.) as follows: 
“ In 1877 he (Klein) cultivated the micrococcus for seven suc¬ 
cessive generations * * * and finally inoculated the product 
of the fifth and seventh generations successfully on two pigs, 
which seems to establish that these microphytes are the ultimate 
cause of this disease.” Ibid, p. 378. 
I regret to have to call attention to the direct contradiction of 
the above statement by Dr. Law himself, only three pages further 
on in the same report, where he says : 
“From the cultivations of the fifth and seventh days, re¬ 
spectively, a drop was taken and two pigs were successfully inocu¬ 
lated.” 
“ In the cultivations of each day were found myriads of bacilli, 
but no other organization (it should be organism—B.) and thns 
Klein was the first to show that the bacillus is the probable (!) 
cause of this disease.” Ibid, p. 1881. 
In the report of 1880-’81 Law says: “ By a parity of reason¬ 
ing it is probable (!) that the swine plague, which is presumed (!) 
to be caused, like anthrax, by bacteridean infection, etc.” 
It will thus be seen that Dr. Law has added nothing to the 
question, and hence we can leave him. 
In order to place Dr. Detmers’ position fairly before the pub¬ 
lic, as well as my own, it will be best to first notice his work in 
the report of 1880-’81, where he corrects his previous assertions 
and admits that he was mistaken with regard to the object which 
he styled “ bacillus suis ” as follows : 
It may be casually remarked that the State veterinarian of 
Nebraska has lately shown his entire ignorance of this subject in 
the official report of the State veterinarian and sanitary live stock 
commission of Nebraska, December 1, 1886,where he says : “It 
is necessary to mention that swine plague is produced and spread 
bv a germ called the bacillus suis.” 
Detmers says: “ As to a proper generic name for the swine 
