432 
EDITORIAL. 
The statement that he worked entirely with water immersion lenses, is not cor¬ 
rect. He had the one-tenth and one-fifteenth objectives of Tolies and the one- 
eighteenth of Zeiss, all homogenous immersion, which are as good as any lenses 
now in use. (See article in American Naturalist , 1882, pages 199 and 200). He 
described a motile germ, which excludes the micrococcus of swine plague. His 
germ existed in the form of a sphere or of two spheres united ; hence he called it 
bi-spherical. This certainly is not the germ of hog cholera. No one could say 
this more distinctly than Dr. Billings in his letter on Texas fever (page 836, Re¬ 
view for November), where he speaks of a germ which he says cannot be differ¬ 
entiated under the microscope from the hog cholera germ. He says: “ The 
germ is not a diplococcus ; it has not a figure 8 form” If anything more were 
necessary to disprove this nonsense as to Dr. Detmers’ claims to priority, it may 
be found in the last report of the Ohio State Agricultural Experiment Station, 
where that gentleman speaks of having received a culture of the bacterium de¬ 
scribed in my reports of 1885 and 1886, and states that it is not the same germ 
which he regarded as the cause of hog cholera. Now, if you will turn to page 
212 of the Report of the Bureau of Animal Industry for 1885, you will find a 
very full description of the bacterium of hog cholera, which was written and 
published before Dr. Billings began his investigations of this disease. With this 
before you I do not see how you can give him credit for priority of discovery, 
whatever else you may see in his work and writings. 
If you have read the screeds which Dr. Billings has published in the daily 
newspapers of Nebraska by the page, in regard to the investigations of hog chol¬ 
era, you must understand why I have paid no attention to them. I think you 
will agree with me, that the most charitable explanation of the language used in 
his writings is, that they are the product of a disordered brain. If the editorials 
of the Review are based upon such literature, however, I must occasionally in¬ 
terpose with a mild objection, when my work is questioned. I will simply add 
that so far as I have been able to gather from Dr. Billings’ extremely diffuse and 
bombastic writings, he has made very few experiments and has proved nothing 
that was not previously recorded from the results of experiments in this Bureau. 
When he differs from our conclusions, he is either plainly wrong or without any 
basis of fact. The motile germ of hog cholera is not identical with the non- 
motile germ which causes the German schweineseuche, as Billings thinks ; and I 
venture to assert, it would not be mistaken for it by any one even tolerably well 
acquainted with the different species of micro-organisms. Not only is there the 
fundamental difference that one moves rapidly in liquids, while the other is in¬ 
capable of motion, but they have a very different appearance under the micro¬ 
scope ; they stain differently, and produce very different lesions when inoculated 
upon animals. 
I have not the time to point out the details of these differences, but I mail 
you a copy of the Report of the Department of Agriculture for 1886, in which 
you will find, from pages 603 to 684, a very clear statement of the facts. I 
would refer you particularly to pages 674, 681 (last paragraph), 682 and 683. I 
am sorry to say that the Report of the Bureau of Animal Industry for 1886 has 
not yet been received from the Government Printing Office, and consequently I 
have 'not been able to send it to you. 
Very respectfully, D. E. Salmon. 
