681 



of access that until such a publication can be brought out we 

 cannot do better than mass together as many complete sets of them 

 as possible ; indeed, this is one of the objects for which our Society 

 has been endeavouring to form for its members a library con- 

 taining such works. 



Among the many exhibits made before our Society during 



the past year was one of unusual interest, and of great 



« 



importance. The exhibit I refer to was one by Dr. Thomas 

 Dixson of the Bacillus described by Ebert as peculiar to typhoid 

 fever. These exhibits were shown under the microscope with 

 other preparations of germs (very like typhoid germs) from a 

 cesspit, and others of diarrhoea evacuations, in which there was 

 an absence of any such germs. 



This almost quite new field of research into the bacterioid 

 organisms interests the true botanist almost equally with the 

 physician. Probably one of the most interesting and important 

 scientific discoveries of the present age is the identification of the 

 germs of various fevers, and even of tuberculosis, or as we more 

 generally designate it — consumption. The theory that fevers 

 when infectious are due to the presence of minute organisms, 

 preceded their discovery many years. We all remember that 

 Kobert Boyle expressed his suspicion that such would be found 

 to be the case. Lister proved the relation of organisms to Septiccemia 

 and Pyaemia, and later we find Koch establishing by methods of 

 almost mathematical precision the germs of Acute Traumatic 

 Infection, Klebs and Thomasi that of Marsh Malaria, Bollinger 

 that of Anthrax eancroides in cattle. But the triumph of the day is 

 Koch's discovery and demonstration of the tubercular germ. 

 Nothing is at times easier than in any given disease to find a 

 germ, but it is hard to prove the germ to be the cause of the disease. 

 Thus in tubercle there have been discovered before Koch's time 

 several kinds of minute organisms ; for instance, there was a 

 micrococcus like form, a relatively stout bacterium, and some 

 other forms particularly energetic in their movements, which 



