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£>. E. SALMON. 
in the study of disease germs, and consequently it is very certain 
that the material was not at hand to make a satisfactory investi¬ 
gation even if the microscope was as perfect a one as can be 
made. I have taken some trouble to collect information in regard 
to this matter; and from various sources I learn—first, that no 
stained preparations were made for examination ; secondly, that 
the liquids examined were gathered from the dead animals with¬ 
out any precautions for excluding atmospheric germs ; thirdly, 
that none of the germs were cultivated for study; fourthly, that 
the bacillus, which is the essential element of Pasteur’s vaccine, 
was not seen at all, but was entirely overlooked, and a contami¬ 
nating germ of very different appearance—in other words a mi¬ 
crococcus—was considered to be the Pasteur germ, and the con 
elusions were drawn from this. The germs found in the hogs 
sick in Nebraska were also micrococci, and consequently could 
not be the same as those which Pasteur believes to be the cause 
of the swine disease of France. 
Having been engaged in the microscopical study of swine 
plague for the past eight years, I think I can say, without laying 
myself open to the charge of egotism, that I know something 
about the germs which exist in the bodies of sick hogs, and also 
something about the proper methods of investigation and the 
difficulties in the way of their practical application. From this 
knowledge I have little hesitation in concluding that if the germ 
found in the affected hogs in Nebraska was a micrococcus, as 
those who saw it believed and as I have every reason to believe, 
then Dr. Gerth neither saw Pasteur’s germ in the vaccine nor the 
true germ of hog cholera in the specimens examined from the 
diseased hogs. I see no reason to doubt, therefore, that the Ne¬ 
braska experiments were a failure from every point of view; 
the vaccine was too old to give results of any value, and the mi¬ 
croscopical examination failed to reveal the pathogenic germs. 
This result of such incomplete and brief researches is not to 
be wondered at; indeed, it would have been next to a miracle 
for any one to make sufficiently brilliant discoveries to settle 
such difficult and contested questions in so short a time, with so 
little work and with so few facilities. The remarkable part of 
