272 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
bronchial catarrh, catarrhal pneumonia, measles, and swine 
plague. Of these only the last two could be suggested as 
popular titles for the disorder, and neither of them is free 
from objectionable characters. Measles, of course, would 
be confounded with ordinary measles, which means Cysticer- 
cus celluloses ; and the term swine plague would immediately 
lose the prefix, and be reported as ic plague,” and so the 
plague , which should be limited to one class of animal, might 
be interpreted to mean the plague belonging to another 
class. There is already a tendency to translate pleuro¬ 
pneumonia, and even foot-and-mouth disease, by the word 
plague, and occasionally some little alarm, is caused by a 
report of another outbreak of “ cattle plague,” when one of 
the more common disease is intended. 
Besides the above objections to the use of the word plague 
in application to any disease of animals excepting the 
veritable “ cattle plague,” there is another which seems to 
us still more serious. The Lancet of March 22nd contains 
a note to a letter written by Dr. Klein on “ swine plague,” 
and among the statements made is one to the effect that 
the disease of the pig has been communicated to the 
rabbit and the sheep, and its identity proved by again intro¬ 
ducing the virus from these animals to the pig. If the swine 
plague is also a sheep plague and a rabbit plague, it may 
by-and-bye become a cattle plague; at any rate, the mere 
possibility of sheep and other animals being liable to the pig 
distemper is quite sufficient to show that the term plague is 
not the right one, perhaps is more objectionable than any of 
the other titles by which the disease of swine is known. 
What is required is a name which cannot be used without the 
name of the animal to which it k intended to apply, and of 
all the common terms which are in use hog cholera, although 
manifestly incorrect, has the advantage of necessitating the 
use of a name indicative of pig, inasmuch as ‘ cholera,’ 
minus f hog,’ could not or would not be applied to any of 
the lower animals, while f plague ’ would be naturally 
applicable to cattle, sheep, and swine. 
