cxxii THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



doubtedly depend upon the presence and multiplication of 

 organisms in the blood and throughout the tissues gene- 

 rally. There is the epidemic and highly contagious disease 

 amongst catde — known in this country by the name of 

 the ' blood '■ — which excites in man that most dangerous 

 morbid condition called ' malignant pustule.' The re- 

 searches of M. Davaine \ and others, have revealed the fact 

 that this disease is essentially dependent upon the presence 

 and multiplication of living organisms, closely allied to 

 Vibriones, in the blood of the animals affected, and that 

 similar organisms are also (locally) most abundant in the 

 contagiously incited 'malignant pustule' of man. Unless this 

 latter be destroyed in its early stages, the contained organisms 

 spread throughout the body, and the disease speedily proves 

 fatal. Of late, moreover, attention has also been called ^ to 

 Pasteur's researches on the subject of the very fatal epidemic 

 which raged for fifteen years amongst the silkworms of 

 France. This affection, known by the name of pebrine, is 

 dependent upon the presence and multiplication of peculiar 

 corpuscular organisms, called Psoi'ospen?iicE, m all the tissues 

 of the body. Both these general parasitic maladies are 

 highly contagious ; both are contagious by means of organ- 

 isms ; and in both the virus does increase by self-multiplica- 

 tion within the body of the animal affected. What more 

 suggestive evidence could there be as to the truth of the 

 ' germ-theory,' say its advocates, than is supplied by the 

 phenomena of these two diseases .? Undoubtedly the evidence 

 is irrefragable as to its applicability to these particular dis- 

 eases ; but then comes the question, whether they are com- 

 parable with the other affections to which the germ-theory is 

 sought to be appKed .'' And this question must decidedly be 



See ' Comptus Rendus,' 1864 and 1865. 

 'Nature,' 1870, No. 36, p. 181. 



