180 
t>. E. SALMON 
points discussed in this communication. lie says ; “ Tt has beet 
thoroughly and without doubt demonstrated that inoculation i 
the only reliable measure of prevention. It is true that befort 
inoculation can be introduced into this country we must have ? 
definite and satisfactory answer to an important question furnishec 
from one source or another, aud must settle the query, 4 what ii 
hog cholera ’—is it the same disease here with that which prevail 
in Europe? Veterinary authorities on this side of the Atlantic 
seem to disagree on this important point.” Are these not rathei 
contradictory sentences to occur side by side in the same para 
graph ? If veterinary authorities are not agreed as to whether 
rouget and hog cholera are the same disease there must be verj 
good reason to doubt if Pasteur’s investigations apply at all tc 
hog cholera. This being the case, there has been nothing what¬ 
ever demonstrated as to the value of inoculation as a means of 
preventing hog cholera ; in fact the only experiments made with 
Pasteur’s vaccine have signally failed, and we are, consequently, 
very much surprised that one so able and so conservative in his 
views as Dr. Liautard should write that inoculation had been 
demonstrated thoroughly and without doubt , not only to be a 
reliable measure of prevention, but the only reliable measure . 
We fear that the Doctor’s enthusiastic belief in the measures 
proposed by his great fellow-countryman has led him to make 
somewhat exaggerated claims in regard to his measures—claims 
which the 44 cold logic of facts,” as Dr. Gerth puts it, will hardly 
sustain. 
This naturally brings us to a consideration of the differences 
between the swine diseases of Europe, which Dr. Liautard unac¬ 
countably refers to as one disease, and between the diseases of 
Europe and the one contagious disease which has been described 
as affecting American swine. To give a clearer idea of his 
views I quote : “Is the rouget of France, the schweineseuche of 
Germany, and the pneumo-enteritis of England and the cholera 
of America one disease ? If we are to accept what has been 
written by competent authors in all these various countries there 
does not seem to be room for a doubt. The symptoms and the 
lesions of which we read descriptions by French, German, Eug* 
