418 
THOMAS BOWHILL. 
injury to students, tending to mislead them from a true concep- 
tion of the pathological essentials in disease. The disease which 
comes nearest to being an exception to the above is febris-inter- 
mittens, commonly known as fever and ague; but it has its spe¬ 
cific symptoms, which, while accompanied by a fever having noth¬ 
ing to do with it, are dependent upon the presence and action of a 
known germ (the Spirocheton Obermeiri) in the organism. Teta¬ 
nus is another disease that is accompanied by fever, but has its 
specific phenomena by which we know it. Swine plague proper, 
as I have seen it in America, is by no means an eruptive disease, 
if by eruption Prof. Walley means skin complications. The 
peculiar discoloration of the skin is due more to disturbances of 
the circulation and stasis than anything else, though it may be 
that embolism, due to the micro-organism, plays some part in it, 
especially as the phenomena seen would seem to indicate that 
these discolorations are due either to interferences of the circula¬ 
tion in the arterioles or a venous reflux—the vis a fronti being 
interfered with especially, as I find the myocardium in all cases 
in a condition of degeneratio adeposa (myo-malacia). It seems 
somewhat singular that when such eminent authorities in England 
as Klein, Axe and others, have been working so many years 
(since 1876) on swine plague, that they should not have been able 
to discover the true micro-organism. It is also singular that 
Prof. Walley should have made no mention of any other work 
done in America than that of Prof Law, and have neglected to 
mention that of Detmers and Salmon, especially that of Det- 
mers, for, pathologically considered, it gives the best descriptions 
of lesions of swine plague and its clinical variations that have yet 
appeared. Dr. Billings’ experiments go to prove the correctness 
of Walley’s conclusions in regard to abortion, as the micro-organ¬ 
ism has been found in both the amniotic and spleen of foeti where 
the mother has recently died and the young were dead. 
Prof. Walley’s description of the lesions in the kidneys is very 
meagre, as shown in the autopsy quoted, as in every case which 
we have seen, the disease is characterized by swollen kidneys and 
an excessive degree of parenchymatous inflammation. But his 
description of the hemorrhage into Bowman’s capsule, or exces- 
