554 
D. E. SALMON. 
pathogenic action of these organisms. It was equally satisfac¬ 
tory with the experiments of MM. Pasteur and Thuillier; and 
the inoculations were made Jan. 17, 1881, or fourteen months 
before the discovery of this same organism by these gentlemen. 
The communication of Dr. Detmers, referred to by M. Pas¬ 
teur, appeared in the American Naturalist for March and April, 
1882, and was a resume of his studies for the Department of 
Agriculture. In this article he still thinks there is just cause to 
suppose that the organism of swine-plague has a helobaeterium, 
or rod form, and a resting spore. There are, however, no new 
observations or experiments referred to, there is no additional 
proof that the micrococci seen by him were not the result of at¬ 
mospheric contamination—nothing to show that a pure cultiva¬ 
tion of these would produce the disease. On the other hand, the 
organism which he describes possesses a flagellum, and a moving 
stage or period, neither of which have I been able to observe 
with the true germ of this disease, nor with the closely allied 
micrococcus which causes fowl-cholera. 
It is a matter of record, therefore, that the organism which 
coustitutes the cause of swine-plague was first discovered by 
Klein in 1876, but that he failed to connect it in any way with 
the virus of the disease, and afterwards concluded that it de¬ 
pended upon a very different schizophyte. It is also a matter of 
record that I was the first to demonstrate by satisfactory methods 
that this micrococcus exists in the blood during the life of the 
animal, that it can be cultivated in flasks, and that the sixth suc¬ 
cessive cultivation, made in considerable quantities of liquid, and 
which contained no other form than micrococcus, still produced 
the disease. Neither Pasteur and Thuillier, nor any other inves¬ 
tigators that I am aware of, have added one particle of evidence, 
except by way of confirmation, to that previously advanced by 
me. M. Pasteur is usually very particular in giving credit, but 
he does not seem to be keeping up with the progress of Ameri¬ 
can science. 
