550 
D. E. SALMON. 
U.S. Commissioner of Agriculture to investigate the disease known 
in this country as hog-cholera. The greater part of these served 
but two months; but Dr. Detmers, having reported the discovery 
of the disease-germ, was allowed to continue his investigations. 
In his first report, Dr. Detmers stated that the disease was caused 
by a bacillus, which he named Bacillus suis, because the same, so 
far as he was able to learn, was peculiar to and characteristic of 
swine-plague.* * * § He saw micrococci, but regarded them as bacil¬ 
lus germs: indeed, he states that he constantly observed one of 
these under the microscope while it “ budded, and grew to double 
its length, in exactly two hours.” f 
This report of Dr. Detmers, coming so soon after Klein’s, and 
attributing the virulence to a bacillus of substantially the same 
characters as that described by Klein, while the latter’s micro¬ 
cocci were made to do duty as bacillus germs,—a relation which 
had been previously ascribed to them by the medical officer in 
his 1 preliminary note,’ though it was not suggested by the Eng¬ 
lish investigator himself,—did much to confirm the bacillus 
theory, and to convince scientific men that the parasite of an¬ 
other contagious fever had actually been isolated, and its connec¬ 
tion with the disease demonstrated. 
In January, 1880, M. Megnin published the results of a mi¬ 
croscopic examination of the blood in this disease, in which he 
described and figured a micrococcus. X This organism existed in 
single granules, and also in clusters and chains, and agreed so 
closely with one subsequently studied by me that I reproduced 
the drawings of it in connection with my report written the fol¬ 
lowing December. § 
In his second report, || Dr. Detmers does not seem to have ma¬ 
terially modified the views referred to, though he had been study¬ 
ing the disease during the whole of another year. In discussing 
accepted classifications in his supplemental report, he says,— 
* Department of Agriculture. Special report, No. 12, 1879, p. 42. 
t Loc. cit., p. 53. 
J Recueil de m^decine v6t6rinaire, 1880, pp. 36, 37. 
§ Department of Agriculture. Special report, No. 34, pp. 80, 81, plate IX. 
|| Department of Agriculture. Special report, No. 22, pp. 13-67. 
