484 
REVIEW. 
for the same. The Honorable Commissioner of Agriculture de¬ 
serves the hearty thanks of the profession for instituting such in¬ 
vestigations, as well as for the careful manner in which they 
have been carried out. The latter is no doubt the result of the 
wisdom displayed by the Department in the selection of inves¬ 
tigators. 
Drs. Law, Salmon, Detmers, McLean and Lyman are men of 
recognized ability, and their contributions always command a 
careful perusal and consideration. 
Besides this, the diseases treated of— i. e., swine plague 
“ chicken cholera,” contagious pleuro-pneurnonia, anthrax and 
Texas cattle disease—are those that most interest the veterina¬ 
rian and agriculturist at the present time. The action, which it 
is hoped the National Government will take, in dealing with 
these plagues will be largely influenced by such reports as the 
one before us. It would infringe too much on our space to give 
a lengthy opinion, as we would like, of the labors of these differ¬ 
ent investigators, and we must content ourselves with merely 
noting the prominent features of their report. 
These investigations began about four years ago, and it is cer¬ 
tainly very gratifying to know that since the preventive measures 
advised have been observed there has been a rapid decrease both 
in the number of animals attacked and in the virulency of the 
diseases. 
Dr. Salmon gives some interesting results concerning the 
power of the contagia of swine plague in resisting certain anti¬ 
septic agents. He finds that chloride of zinc, salicylic acid, car¬ 
bolic acid, iodine, sulphate of quinine and a few other agents in 
sufficiently strong solutions are destructive to the pathogenic or¬ 
ganisms. Heat above 150° and putrefaction are also destruc¬ 
tive. 
The opinions entertained by Drs. Detmers and Salmon con¬ 
cerning the true nature, origin and development of the disease- 
germs are somewhat at variance, and it will doubtless require re¬ 
peated experiments to definitely settle this point. As Pasteur 
has shown with anthrax, so the experiments of these gentlemen 
prove that the swine plague is less fatal when produced by inocu- 
