FERMENTATION AND DISEASE. 145 



many a time impressed, not only with their sparkling cleverness, but 

 with their deep-searching wisdom and their wealth of spiritual expe- 

 rience. In this central region of the Review the question of sponta- 

 neous generation has been taken up and discussed. The writer is not 

 a whit behind his colleagues in literary brilliancy and logical force. 

 But, having no touchstone in his own experience to enable him to dis- 

 tinguish a good experiment from a bad one, he has committed, on the 

 point of the gravest practical import, the influence of the powerful 

 journal in which he writes to the support of error. It is only, I 

 would repeat, by practice among facts that the intellect is prepared 

 to judge of facts, and no mere logical acuteness or literary skill can 

 atone for the want of this necessary education. 



We now approach an aspect of this question which concerns us 

 still more closely, and which will be best illustrated by an actual fact. 

 A few years ago I was bathing in an Alpine stream, and, returning to 

 my clothes from the cascade which had been my shower-bath, I 

 slipped upon a block of granite, the sharp crystals of which stamped 

 themselves into my naked shin. The wound was an awkward one, 

 but, being in vigorous health at the time, I hoped for a speedy recov- 

 ery. Dipping a clean pocket-handkerchief into the stream, I wrapped 

 it round the wound, limped home, and remained for four or five days 

 quietly in bed. There was no pain, and at the end of this time I thought 

 myself quite fit to quit my room. The wound, when uncovered, was 

 found perfectly clean, uninflamed, and entirely free from pus. Placing 

 over it a bit of gold-beater's-skin, I walked about all day. Toward 

 evening itching and heat were felt ; a large accumulation of pus fol- 

 lowed, and I was forced to go to bed again. The water-bandage was 

 restored, but it was powerless to check the action now set up ; arnica 

 was applied, but it made matters worse. The inflammation increased 

 alarmingly, until finally I was ignobly carried on men's shoulders 

 down the mountain, and transported to Geneva, where, thanks to the 

 kindness of friends, I was immediately placed in the best medical 

 hands. On the morning after my arrival in Geneva, Dr. Gautier dis- 

 covered an abscess in my instep, at a distance of five inches from the 

 wound. The two were Connected by a channel, or sinus, as it is tech- 

 nically called, through which he was able to empty the abscess with- 

 out the application of the lance. 



By what agency was that channel formed what was it that thus 

 tore asunder the sound tissue of my instep, and kept me for six weeks 

 a prisoner in bed ? In the very room where the water-dressing had 

 been removed from my wound and the gold-beater's-skin applied to it, 

 I opened this year a number of tubes, containing perfectly clear and 

 sweet infusions of fish, flesh, and vegetable. These hermetically- 

 sealed infusions had been exposed for weeks, both to the sun of the 

 Alps and to the warmth of a kitchen, without showing the slightest 

 turbidity or sign of life. But two days after they were opened the 

 VOL. x. 10 



