38 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



to the conclusion that there were specific ferments, each pro- 

 ducing its own specific fermentation. 



The teachings of M. Pasteur created a new interest in the 

 search for the ferments of the zymotic fevers. In 1850 Eayer 

 discovered httle fihform bodies in the blood of animals which 

 had died from anthrax or charbon. This discovery slept 

 until 1863, when Davaine inoculated rabbits with blood con- 

 taining these filiform bodies, with the result that they died of 

 anthrax. The little cylindrical rods of butyric fermentation 

 were described by Pasteur in 1861, and Davaine says that it 

 was owing to Pasteur's demonstration of the connection 

 between these "corpuscles" and the butyric fermentation 

 that he conceived the idea that anthrax might be caused by 

 the corpuscles seen in the blood in anthrax. Thus slowly, by 

 years of clinical observation, by years of chemical, micro- 

 scopical, and botanical researches, the fons et origo mali was 

 found. Physicians, chemists, and biologists had, each in their 

 own department and working in their own way, contributed 

 something to this result. And now the search for specific 

 bacteria in disease may be said to have fairly begun. Hitherto 

 the efforts of the believers in the parasitic — i.e., bacterial — 

 origin of diseases to discover the microbes had been rendered 

 futile by difiiculties connected with the means of research. The 

 habits, if I may use the term, of the bacteria were unknown ; 

 their behaviour to chemical reagents — in short, the whole 

 scientific method connected with the investigation of their 

 life-history and microscopical demonstration — had to be built 

 up almost from the beginning, and errors unavoidable in the 

 investigation of a new and difficult science had to be elimi- 

 nated. These difficulties have in the case of many of the 

 specific bacteria been overcome, while other bacteria whose 

 existence was before strongly suspected are being constantly 

 added to the list of those that are known. Cohn showed that 

 bacteria arose in solutions of decaying animal matter, and 

 placed them among the vegetable organisms. But the admis- 

 sion of bacteria to a place in the natural kingdoms as inde- 

 pendent living organisms was not to take place without a war 

 of words and scientific tests. 



As it was believed by clinical physicians that fevers could 

 be generated de novo in an unhygienic environment, so more 

 than one distinguished biologist has argued that bacteria may 

 arise by natural laws and reactions in solutions of organic 

 matter. This opens up the question of so-called spontaneous 

 generation in general ; and the subject did not escape the 

 attention of M. Pasteur, who, in 1860-61, after carefully- 

 conducted experiments, came to the conclusion that "all 

 organized productions of infusions take rheir origin from cor- 

 puscles which exist in suspension in the air." He says in 



