176 
D. E. SALMON. 
contracted hog cholera, when exposed to it, just as readily and 
just as severely as others who had not been operated upon. 
The great question of interest, and the one which it is the ob¬ 
ject of these papers to consider, is: Why does Pasteur’s vaccine 
fail to prevent hog cholera ? Dr. Liautard evidently believes 
that it is owing to the time required to bring the vaccine from 
Paris to America. Considering, however, the activity of the 
first vaccine, which evidently multiplied in the body of one of the 
vaccinated animals, since the germs were found in its internal or¬ 
gans at the time of its death, four days after vaccination, and 
considering also that two of the pigs were given at least twelve 
times the prescribed dose, it would appear that at least some de¬ 
gree of immunity should have^been shown by these animals. 
Dr. Liautard’s explanation does not appear to the writer to 
be any nearer correct than that of Dr. Gerth; indeed, unless I 
am greatly mistaken, both of these gentlemen are radically 
wrong in their conclusions that the French disease, called by Pas¬ 
teur rouget, is identical with the American disease which we call 
hog cholera. I explained this matter quite fully at the meeting 
of veterinarians and members of the State Sanitary Commissions 
held in Chicago last November; and Dr. Gerth evidently had my 
view in mind when he stated so positively that the germ in the 
Pasteur vaccine was identical with that found in hogs affected 
with hog cholera in Nebraska. The ridiculousness of such an 
assertion, when we come to consider the investigations that 
were made, would be amusing if it were not for the serious con¬ 
sequences which follow from deceiving the public with such rash 
and unreliable statements. 
To understand the contested questions in relation to the germs 
of the swine diseases in France and America, it is necessary to 
refer briefly to recent European investigations. Pasteur’s first 
paper on rouget appeared in 1882, and he then described the germ 
as having the form of a figure eight and resembling the fowl 
cholera microbe. In 1S83 he confirmed these statements. From 
these papers we and many others were led to believe that he /had 
discovered the germ of this disease to be one of the spherical, 
globular, or bispherical species of bacteria; that is, a microeoc- 
