566 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
ancient and modern. There is also a culture room, well lighted 
and heated with steam, regulated by a patent register so that the 
temperature can be at all times under complete control. This 
room contains a number of incubators and all necessary appara¬ 
tus for the cultivation of germs, together with many pathological 
specimens preserved in glass jars. Still another large room in the 
basement of the building is used for the keeping of a number of 
rabbits, squirrels and mice for experimental purposes, several of 
which have already been inoculated with hog cholera, Texas 
fever, etc. Outside a convenient building is kept for the purpose 
of holding autopsies. 
The beautiful experimental farm situated just outside the 
city limits, to which the Dr. drove me, is run in connection with 
the State University. Here Dr. Billings has achieved most won¬ 
derful success in his inoculation experiments to secure a pre 
ventative of hog cholera. 
In a pen where hogs had been dying of cholera for two years 
were placed a dozen or fifteen shoats, which had been previ¬ 
ously inoculated, and exposed as they were from these thorough¬ 
ly impregnated surroundings for over three months, not one had 
at that time shown the least sign of affection and seemed as thrif¬ 
ty as any I ever saw at their age: while out of ten healthy pigs 
purchased from the country, where they had never been exposed, 
and placed in the same pen with the inoculated ones, all but one 
had died of hog cholera, and upon two of which we held autopsies. 
Each showed severe glandular affection, an ulcerated condition of 
the large bowel and immediately about the ileo-caecal valve, nephrit¬ 
is and a somewhat inflamed condition of the lungs; material taken 
from the spleen gave a pure cultivation of the hog cholera germ; 
several other lots had been inoculated in the country with equal 
success. 
Dr. Billings is an ardent and untiring worker and the unques¬ 
tioned success which has attended his investigations in the study 
and final development of the true germ causing hog cholera and 
Texas fever, within the fourteen months of his experiments 
shows fully to any candid and intelligent mind, unbiased by pre¬ 
judice and jealousy, that his labor is not the product of a u disor- 
