EDITORIAL. 
431 
coming year witness the opening of the new building in New 
York, destined to form the home of an institution which 
to this day lias provided veterinarians to every scientific institu¬ 
tion in the country where the services of accomplished teachers 
and practitioners has been demanded ? Every friend of veterinary 
* 
medicine in the United States will watch the result of this appeal 
with interest, and we are sure will not he likely to do so without 
also remembering the admonition of Hercules in the fable, and 
putting his own shoulder to the wheel. 
Bacteriology— Hog Cholera. —In our allusions in the editor¬ 
ial department of last month’s Review, to the work of Professor 
Billings and Dr. Salmon, in their investigations of the nature of 
hog cholera, we took occasion, in referring to their respective 
claims to priority in the discoveries which have been hitherto 
made—possibly from a somewhat careless interpretation or mis¬ 
reading of the published statements—to accord the credit of pre¬ 
cedence to Dr. Billings. 
Dr. E. Salmon, very properly looking after what he con¬ 
siders to be the justice of his own claims in the premises, replies 
to our remarks in a long letter of vindication, which is of course 
entitled to a place in our columns, and which we print below. 
This the text of the letter: 
U. S. Department of Agriculture, } 
Bureau of Animal Industry, 
Washington, D. C., Nov. 19, 1887. ) 
Editor of American Veterinary Review: 
Dear Sir. — la your editorial in the November number of the Review I find 
a sentence which certainly calls for a protest on my part. Referring to the in¬ 
vestigations of hog cholera, you say, so far as you have been able to gather from 
the writings of Dr. Billings, that he and the writer have “quite failed to agree 
upon the point of the true origin of that disease; if indeed, their disagreement be 
not rather on the question of priority of discovery. Dr. Billings, while giving 
due credit to Dr. Detmers, who from lack of proper instruments was unable to 
positively realize the nature of his discovery, claims for himself, and we believe 
rightly, and to his researches, the position of first discoverer.” 
In this sentence you refer, as I understand it, to priority in the discovery of 
the bacterium of hog cholera. If I am correct in this, I can only express my 
astonishment that one who has followed those investigations as closely as the 
talented editor of the Review should be led, by the writings mentioned, to ex¬ 
press such an opinion. 
In reference to Dr. Detmers, it is incontestible that he had instruments suffi¬ 
cient to determine the microscopical characters of any microbe he discovered. 
