18 THE BACTERIOPHAGE AND ITS BEHAVIOR 



question at the Scarborough Congress of the Institute of State Medi- 

 cine in 1923.^" Twort was again present but he failed to discuss the 

 arguments which I have advanced. 



It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that if Twort refrains from 

 such a discussion it is simply because the facts reveahng the dis- 

 similarity of the two phenomena are indisputable. 



II. Terminology and Technic 



TERMINOLOGY 



Lack of precision in terminology is, in all branches of knowledge, 

 a permanent cause of confusion. In biology it is the basis of the 

 most unfortunate errors. 



I have shown elsewhere* that the science of immunity has been 

 held back for more than twenty years by the equivocation created in 

 the subject by the term ''lysis," which as a matter of fact has entirely 

 lost its real significance. As it is, so to speak, impossible to re-establish 

 the true etymological meaning to a word when it has once undergone 

 deflection, and as I desire on the other hand to avoid all misunderstand- 

 ing, I shall not employ the word "lysis" but will use the word "dis- 

 solution," or "to dissolve," and it is necessary to take these terms in 

 their strict sense of "the passage of a solid body into a soluble state, 

 without residue, macroscopically or microscopically visible." 



I have apphed the term "bacteriophagy" to the phenomenon, in 

 reahty very complex as we will see, which consists essentially in a 

 "dissolution" of bacteria through the operation of a principle which I 

 have termed "bacteriophage." 



A bacterial suspension, or a culture in a Hquid medium, in which 

 complete bacteriophagy has taken place becomes a perfectly clear 

 medium, all of the bacterial cells being dissolved. In it, under the 

 highest magnification, either in the fresh state or after staining, will 

 be found neither microorganisms nor granules. 



Since the name "Bacteriophage" has been criticized, I may again 

 state that obviously I have not used the suffix "phage" in its strict 

 etymological sense of "to eat," but in that of "developing at the ex- 

 pense of," a sense which it bears very frequently in scientific nomen- 

 clature. Several examples of this might be cited, but I will only men- 

 tion one, to which I will have occasion to return in the course of this 



* Immunity in Natural Infectious Disease; Williams & Wilkins Co., Bait., 1924. 



