W. L. HOLMAN 119 



similar considerations must be thought of to avoid error in interpretation of results. 

 In the study of bacteriophage and bacterial dissociation the same considerations are 

 needed. I would finally urge, after reading Claude Bernard's Introduction to the Study 

 of Experimental Medicine^ and in attempting to get working hypotheses for the phe- 

 nomena of bacterial association, that more and more attention be paid to the physi- 

 ology of bacteria as reactive, living beings with as complicated metabolisms as our 

 own, and that the study of their pathology, if such we may call it, requires this pre- 

 liminary knowledge of the normal limits of their physiological activities, alone and 

 together, in the test tube and in the animal body. Thus we may be able to understand 

 better many phenomena which at present cause confusion, and may better appreci- 

 ate the basic principles in many of the biological activities of bacteria. 



' Bernard, Claude: op. cit. Translated by H. C. Greene. Macmillan Co., 1927. 



