10 President's Address. 



used to call it typho-malaria, or malario-typhoid, because it presented 

 some symptoms which resembled those of typhoid, and others which 

 resembled those of malaria, but nobody really understood it. At 

 last (I think in 1885) a young military doctor, who had a taste for 

 bacteriology (the same David Bruce, who afterward^: distinguished 

 himself by the discovery of the trypanosoma of nagana, and by his 

 investigations into sleeping sickness, and is now a Fellow of the 

 Royal Society), determined to find out what the cause of the disease 

 was : and after a long search and many investigations and experi- 

 ments, discovered, proved, and announced, in 1887, that it was caused 

 by a specific micro-organism, so small that it is only visible under a 

 magnification of 1,000 diameters. This organism was named INIicro- 

 coccus melitensis. The next step in the investigation was to try and 

 trace the life-history of the Micrococcus. It was not until 1904 

 that this question was seriously taken up. Micrococcus was difiicult 

 to see. It had to be found out, first, how he left the body : where 

 he went to ; what he did ; whether he underwent any change, and if 

 so, what change; and lastly, how he got, from wherever he might 

 be, into the body of a previously healthy individual. It was a long 

 and troublesome enquiry, but ultimately it succeeded. Evervbody 

 in Malta used to drink goats' milk : and although the goats used to 

 eat a good deal of paper and cigar-ends which they found in the 

 streets, the milk was good, and the method of its distribution emi- 

 nently sanitary ; for the goat used to come to your door, and was 

 milked into your own clean jug. It was, however, eventually dis- 

 covered that fifty per cent of the goats in Malta responded to the 

 agglutination test, which fact pointed to their being infected by 

 Malta fever ; and that ten per cent, were actually secreting Micrococ- 

 cus in their milk. As soon as it was discovered that the goats were 

 thus acting as reservoirs of Micrococcus, the use of goats' milk was 

 forbidden in the hospitals, and amongst the garrison and fleet. The 

 result was, that whereas in 1905 there had been in the garrison and 

 fleet 649 cases of Malta fever, in 1907 there were only seven cases 

 in the garrison, and none in the fleet. There could scarcely be a 

 more complete or convincing object-lesson on the value of scientific 

 research in the matter of extirpating parasitic disease. 



I have dwelt at length on the subject of the efforts of science 

 in the matter of combating disease, because it is an aspect of the 

 question of the advancement of science which more particularly and 

 immediately affects the practical interests of the majority of the 

 South African community. To survev the whole field would be im- 

 possible, within the available limits of time, and without exhausting 

 the patience of my audience, even if my acquaintance with the 

 various subjects were sufficient to justify me in dwelling on them. 

 I should like, however, to hear my testimony to the unselfish devo- 

 tion to the cause of science which is customarily shown by scientific 

 workers in South Africa, in whatever branch of science they may be 

 interested. It is well known how Dnvid Gill devoted himself, for 



