48 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



and tlie micro-organisms involved, there is no doubt that he would be 

 able to save himself large losses in this respect. 



Farther than this, the preservation of food is involved in the study 

 of bacteriology, and this feature of the science rs represented in the 

 canning iudusti'y, in the evaporating and desiccating industries, and 

 in those industries which attempt to preserve foods of various kinds 

 by means of sugar, salt, and the commonly known preservatives. 



On the one hand, therefore, we aim to further certain kinds of fer- 

 mentations which result in certain fermented products; on the other, 

 we try to check fermentation that we may preserve fruits, vegetables, 

 milk, et cetera. 



In this very brief resume, and very incomplete discussion, Ave have 

 hinted at such portions of the field involved as may simply illustrate 

 some phases of the science. We may justly conclude that bacteriology 

 is a science, fundamental in its position, exceedingly broad in its scope, 

 very practical in its application and constant in its daily use. It is 

 the basis of sanitation; of preventive medicine; of septic and anti- 

 septic surgery; of infectious disease; of dairying, with its various fer- 

 mentations, its commercial products, and its milk-born diseases; of soil 

 changes of fermentations which are, doubtless, far more extensive than 

 those which we find in milk; of nitrogen assijnilation from the air, with 

 its consequent leguminous growth; of food preservation; and of other 

 lines of industry, — in short, it is an economic study with varied aspects. 

 If it were not for this economic side, doubtless little attention would 

 be given to the biological side, but, inasmuch as so many problems of 

 great importance rest upon the idiosyncrasies of micro-organisms, the 

 biological significance has become greatly and necessarily pronounced 

 and it will doubtless eventually lead to the extension of biological 

 knowledge in the higher-life world. From this standpoint, this science, 

 which has opened new fields in chemistry, physiology, and physics, merits 

 position and space which should be accorded it in biological studies, 

 and these should be fundamental and initial. In economic work, it 

 spreads into nearly every field in which life is at all involved. 



Emphasis will he given to what has already been said if we quote 

 the words of Dr. Vaughan, of the University of Michigan, who, in his 

 discussion of ''The Value of Scientific Research to the State," says, in 

 part : 



''This same science of bacteriology has enabled us not only to limit 

 the spread of the infectious diseases, but it has given us the most bril- 

 liant results ever attained in the cure of disease. It has largely robbed 

 diphtheria of its horrors and has reduced the mortality from this dis- 

 ease from over 50 per cent to less than five per cent in cases in which 

 antitoxin is used immediately on the appearance of the disease. This 

 is a triumph in curative medicine which the most sanguine and vision- 

 ary man of even 10 years ago would scarcely have expected. The same 

 science has given us a means of combatting that rare but distressing 

 disease known as hydrophobia, and of preventing the same. Who can 

 say that the world has not been benefited by the labors of the pioneers 

 in bacteriology? Who can overestimate the discoveries of Pollender 

 and Davaine, which to their contemporaries seemed to be at most of 

 only trifling importance? Who can foretell the benefits that may come 

 to mankind from what appears to be a trifling scientific discovery? 



