220 Transactions of the Society. 



mention Blackwater Fever, iilariasis, sprue, intestinal myiasis, 

 mycotic, spirochcetic and flagellate urethritis. 



Certain tropical skin diseases are ii-eqiiently met with. The 

 following are a cause of great discomfort in summer and are often 

 wrongly diagnosed : dermatitis interdigitalis epidermophytica, or 

 "mango toe"; tinea cruris or "dhobie itch"; prickly heat and 

 various types of tropical pyosis — such as Pyosis Mansoni, pyosis 

 discoides, etc. I have seen in 1915 in Macedonian peasants cases 

 of ulcus tropicvim, oriental sore, ulcus infantum, blastomycosis, 

 sporotricosis, accladosis, etc. 



The hour is late and I must conclude my lecture. From the 

 experiences I have related it will be seen of what enormous import- 

 ance microscopical organisms are in the ostiology of Tropical and 

 War Zone diseases ; what havoc they play in armies in the iield ; 

 what ruin they can bring to a nation. Fortunately, thanks to the 

 labours carried out before and during the war by such men as 

 Eoux, Sir Almroth Wright, Carrel, Browning, Horroclc, Eyere, 

 Martin, Hewlett, and many others, a number of microbes have 

 been dominated by new chemical or physiological methods, and 

 some of them have been, so to speak, placed in harness and com- 

 pelled to provide the means to prevent and cure the diseases of 

 which they themselves are the cause : I mean vaccines and sera. 

 The typhoid bacillus induces a disease which in previous wars has 

 caused far more mortality than have bullets. The same bacillus 

 by a very simple method has been turned into a beneficial vaccine 

 which in this war has saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of 

 brave soldiers in tlie British and Allied Armies. 



Welch's bacillus is the common cause of that horrible infection, 

 gas gangrene. By inoculating the same bacillus into animals a 

 serum has been obtained which has both a preventive and a curative 

 action. 



The experience in the Balkanic War Zone has also shown more 

 perhaps than anywhere else the paramount importance for diag- 

 nostic purposes and, indirectly for curative and prophylactic 

 purposes, of the work in which all of you are interested; of the 

 M''ork which your Society has encouraged and furthered so much 

 — namely, scientific microscopical work. 



