CONTAGIOUS PLEUEO-PNEUMONIA IN CONGEESS. 
553 
widely the infection is spread the more numerous will be the 
sales and the higher will be the income of the commission dealer. 
Let his hoodwinked victims look to their own interests. Why 
should he sacrifice his private interests for theirs, or for any 
future good of the country at large? 
The Chicago Breeder's Gazette of Feb. 3, 1887, publishes 
what purports to be a letter of Dr. Gallinger, of the date of Jan. 
17, 1887, in which he assures one of his constituents that he will 
do everything in his power for the passage of the pleuro-pneu- 
monia bill. It is now in order for Dr. Gallinger to deny the au¬ 
thenticity of this letter, or to explain its contents in view of the 
absolutely contradictory position which he assumed when the bill 
came up for consideration. We are anxious to hear what were 
the considerations which led Dr. Gallinger to so suddenly and 
completely change his purpose. As we have already seen, it 
could neither have been the study of recent medical lore, nor of 
any published report nor treatise on the lung plague. What, 
then, persuaded him to change ? 
But, finally, our political physicians are morbidly sensitive as 
to the outlay of any public money which has once found its way 
into the federal treasury. They will much rather lose $5,000,000 
next year than appropriate $50,000 to stop the leak. Very well! 
Such careful guardians of the people’s money cannot hesitate to 
accept the following proposition : 
Challenge .—Let Drs. Swinburne and Gallinger, the Commis¬ 
sioner of Agriculture and the Chief of the Bureau of Animal In¬ 
dustry (the three expert (?) Commissioners may be added if they 
should be appointed), select one dozen cattle in a pure elevated 
country district, outside the area of anj^ lung plague, have them 
removed with all due precautions to the experimental farm of the 
Department of Agriculture or other approved place, have them 
inoculated behind the elbow with the liquid exudate of the dis¬ 
eased lung from a well-developed case of lung plague to be se¬ 
lected by the Chief of the Bureau of Animal Industry, with or 
without the assistance of other veterinarians, and await the result. 
If in the course of twenty-five days a proportion of these animals 
show the specific infective inflammation extending subcutaneously 
