816 
VERANUS A. MOORE, B.S., M.D. 
swine plague and its organism was designated the bacterium of 
swine plague. 
In the following year (1886) Dr. Theobald Smith * discov¬ 
ered another bacterial disease among swine. It was found to 
be similar to the German Schweineseiiche^ both in its morbid 
anatomy and in the morphology and properties of its specific 
organism. In naming this disease the Bureau of Animal In¬ 
dustry called it, on account of its similarity to the German 
SchiveineseucJie^ swine plague, and its organism the bacillus of 
swine plague, and changed the name of the disease described in 
1885 to hog cholera and its organism to the bacterium t of hog 
cholera. The changing of the name of the first disease de¬ 
scribed from swine plague to hog cholera has been the cause of 
some criticism and it has been credited with the responsibility 
of creating confusion. It has, perhaps, led hasty readers to a 
misinterpretation of these diseases and their relation to those 
described in other lands under different titles. While the names 
assigned may not have been especially happy ones, the transfer 
of swine plague from the intestinal to the lung disease must be 
considered as a fortunate occurrence and one which tended to 
simplify and not to confuse. 
Dr. F. S. Billings, of the Nebraska State Experiment Station, 
opposed this classification. He not only refused to accept the 
change and continued to write about hog cholera under the 
title of swine plague, but he denied the existence of the swine 
plague, as described in the reports of the Bureau of Animal In¬ 
dustry for 1886 and subsequently, as an independent disease. 
The wide dissemination of his publications on this subject has 
unquestionably been responsible for much of the haziness con¬ 
cerning the distinguishing features of these diseases. 
In 1893 Drs. Welch and Clements J read a paper before the 
* Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Animal Industry, 1886. 
f In 1888 the genus Bacterimii was changed to Bacillus and this organism is spoken 
of since that time as the hog- cholera bacillus. 
t Welch and Clements, Remarks on Hog Cholera and Swine Plague, First Interna- 
ional Congress of America held in Chicago, Ill., October, 1893, 
