president's address. 43 



convincing to me that it is physiologically and not morpho- 

 logically that the saprophytes are subject to mutation, so much 

 so that unless we take a very broad and philosophical view of 

 what is specific, we may even appear to approach by such 

 mutation a physiological specificity concurrently with a morpho- 

 logical identity with unaltered forms. 



The remarkable morphological similarity of certain bacilli, 

 whose physiological differences are terribly unlike, must strike 

 a very casual observer. 



Now I do not for a moment suggest that any case in which 

 putrefactive forms have, by change of environment, changed 

 their functional specificity so as to become pathogenic has 

 ever been made out. 



Nothing of the sort has been done ; but what I would sug- 

 gest is, that the possibility of doing this is worthy of sincere 

 consideration and experimental research. 



That certain physiological changes can be readily brought 

 about in the saprophytes there can be no doubt. How far may 

 these, if constantly taking place in nature, at times fill the air 

 with minute organisms in vast clouds, which by certain altered 

 conditions have become endowed with functional characters 

 inimical to man and beast, taking for a time the place of 

 common forms with which the air is usually charged, but as 

 a rule innocuous to man and beast ? 



Let it be remembered I am suggesting, not affirming ; 

 inquiring, not stating. 



Certainly the examination by Prof. Klebs, of Zurich, of 

 the blood of influenza patients is more than noticeable. So 

 far as I know distinctly monad forms are putrefactive. Klebs 

 finds them in the blood from the heart of patients dead from 

 influenza. More striking still, they are oval in shape, have 

 distinct power of motility, and are found " attached to the 

 margin or imbedded in the substance of the blood corpuscles." 



This is distinctly the action of saprophytic monads. But 

 that we are told that " every precaution to a^oid contamina- 

 tion " w^as resolutely taken, and this would inevitably involve 

 rapid investigation after death, we might have concluded that 

 it was the evidence of advanced decomposition that we were 

 studying. 



But I think this would be a scarcely just conclusiori. 



