42 president's address. 



So Dr. T. Prudden,* after very close investigation of seven 

 cases of strongly pronounced influenza, discovered Staphylococcus 

 pyogenes aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes, and Biplococcus pneu- 

 monia'., and, as a result, concludes that " bacteriology has 

 brought to light no living germ which there is reason to 

 believe has anything to do with causing the disease." 



It thus becomes fairly manifest that a remarkable variety of 

 pathogenic forms have been discovered by a great variety of 

 careful workers, in widely separated localities, associated with 

 the same specific disease. 



Now mere speculation is scarcely tolerable in the treatment 

 of a scientific question ; but when we are in complete darkness 

 on so important a subject, and are earnestly struggling to find 

 the light, even speculation or inferential inquiry may scarcely 

 be out of place, especially when the freedom from certain 

 restraints, which a position like mine of to-night affords, offers 

 itself. 



It will be remembered that I have spent, and am still spending, 

 time and effort in endeavouring to discover how far the sapro- 

 phytic organisms — so closely kindred to the pathogenic microbes 

 — are capable of being changed by continuous, gradually im- 

 posed, and prolonged changes of environment. 



Some extremely interesting and suggestive results have been 

 attained, which I am not in a position at this time even to 

 indicate. The final results can only be obtained by persistence, 

 patience, and years. 



But I have already been able to publish some results which 

 are, up to the point that they carry us, capable at least of 

 suggesting further research. For in less than ten years the 

 saprophytic organisms that are normal at a temperature 60° F. 

 were trained to live, even with increased fecundity, at a tempera- 

 ture of 157° F., and yet the normal adult organisms, which had 

 not been so trained by prolonged and cumulative change of 

 environment, are always hilled by immersion at a temperature 

 of 140° F. 



Now with this alteration of function no important change of 

 form was at all visible. It was simply a modification of func- 

 tion. 



This, and the subsequent work T have been doing, has been 



* " Medical Record," Feb. 15, 1890. 



