EDITORIAL. 
145 
France, and Greenfield in England, it is not becoming to express 
doubts of their accuracy when we have not even one scientific 
observation to support us. 
Accepting these observations as facts, I maintain there is no 
longer a shadow of doubt that the bacterium in question is the 
essential cause of the disease, and that it is the active agent, and 
the only active agent in the virus. 
This being the entering wedge for the germ theory in scien¬ 
tific pathology, it is perfectly right to demand the most conclusive 
evidence before admitting it; but this evidence has now been 
furnished—the germ theory has a substantial foundation—and 
medicine is destined to make its most brilliant triumphs by the 
discoveries to which it will lead. The progressive pathologist will 
waste no more time in criticising what is so well established, but 
will press onward to other and equally important discoveries. 
EDITORIAL. 
VETERINARY BUREAUS—ILLINOIS AT THE HEAD. 
In a late number of the Review we called the attention of our 
readers to the measures which were discussed by the Legislatures of 
some of our States, and to the different bills which were then pre¬ 
sented before the honorable representatives through the different 
parts of the country. The main object of the various projects 
presented was the necessity for the creation of veterinary bureaus 
with chief veterinary inspectors, to which would be referred the 
management of regulations relating to contagious diseases in 
domestic animals. 
The necessity for the creation of such bureaus was already 
fully appreciated by tbe veterinary profession, and especially was 
this the case since the attempts made through the Eastern States 
for the stamping out of contagious pleuro-pneumonia after the em¬ 
bargo imposed on our cattle by England. And this need lias be¬ 
come still more felt ana increased in importance since the severe 
measures which have been established against the importation of 
our swine because of trichina, to say nothing of what threatens 
