HOG CHOLERA, OR SWINE PLAGUE. 
417 
Prof. Schutz gives for that found in Germany, and illustrates it 
with plates, which show a very marked resemblance to those of 
the cultures of Dr. Billings. 
The description which Dr. Salmon gives of the manner in 
which this new microbe reacts against coloring matter does not 
correspond to any known variety of bacteria or cocci , but to 
spores , and 1 must therefore conclude that he has not yet given 
satisfactory evidence as to its etiological connection with Ameri¬ 
can swine p>lague for the bacteria which I have myself colored in 
the effusions, blood and tissues of undoubted cases of swine plague, 
under Dr. Billings’ directions—(some specimens of which I have 
the pleasure of laying before you and which will undoubtedly 
convince you of their nature) invariably colored at both poles 
with a clear centre in the body of the bacteria , and a blue 
line of connection along the periphery. As I have previously 
said, I have never failed to find this bacteria in every case. As 
we nearly always killed the animals I found them in the spleen, 
kidneys and lymphatic glands in an absolutely pure condition. 
In some few cases where the animals had been dead some few 
hours, but where the autopsies where made early in the morning, 
before heat had time to set up decomposition of the carcasses, 
and the animals had died during the night, I found a few cocci 
and bacterium of putrefaction also present, but the genuine bac¬ 
teria always predominated. 
In England, Prof. Walley recently read a paper on swine 
plague, before the third annual meeting of the National Veteri- 
• nary Association of England. I agree with him as to the term 
; swine plague being the most descriptive and technical designa¬ 
tion for the disease. On the other hand I must object to his 
definition by which he describes the disease as a u specific erup¬ 
tive fever” peculiar to the pig, because there is no such thing 
as a specific fever that has lesions produced only by the rise of 
temperature, fever being but a symptom which accompanies, to a 
greater or less degree, nearly all irritative disturbances in the ani¬ 
mal organism. This practice, not only in veterinary but human 
medicine, of describing diseases as fevers simply because they 
are accompanied by a rise in temperature, is and has been a great 
