26 DEVELOPMENT OF THE GERM THEORY. 



Koch, Klein, Klels, Nicolaier, Pasteur, and many other noted 

 men have been at work upon this branch of pathology, and spe- 

 cific microbes have been recognised as the cause of disease in 

 anthrax, relapsing fever, actino-mycosis, thrush, ophthalmia, enteric 

 fever, cholera, diphtheria, gonorrhoea, glanders, tetanus, tubercu- 

 losis, influenza, cerebro spinal fever, dysentery, diarrhcea, erysipe- 

 las, foot and mouth disease, hospital gangrene, hydrophobia, 

 malarial fever, measles, mumps, scarlet fever, yellow fever, pneu- 

 monia, phagedaena, puerperal fever, and pyaemia. In chickenpox, 

 cowpox, smallpox, plague syphilis, typhus, and whooping-cough, 

 no true specific microbe has yet been discovered, but there is no 

 reason to doubt that they exist. Probably, Koch's researches and 

 discovery of the cause of tuberculosis in 1882 and of cholera in 

 1884 are the most important. In fact, so much importance has 

 been deservedly attached to Koch's work, that when a few years 

 ago he propounded a method of treating tuberculosis by the sub- 

 cutaneous injection of a preparation composed of the toxines pro- 

 duced by the action of his bacillus, his proposition was received 

 with universal enthusiasm. Unfortunately, this treatment has not 

 fulfilled its promise ; but the attention thus drawn to tuberculosis 

 has added immensely to our knowledge of the disease. 



Owing to the development of bacteriology, surgeons especially 

 have had to extend and enlarge their ideas of infection, and make 

 many alterations in their pathology. Every true inflammation, 

 various forms of necrosis and suppuration, the abscesses, the 

 phlegmonous and purulent inflammations, boils, carbuncles, osteo- 

 myelitis, suppurative arthritis, endo-cranial suppuration, and brain 

 abscess ; empyema, suppurative pericarditis and peritonitis, septi- 

 caemia, pyemia, erysipelas, tetanus, hydrophobia, and the multiple 

 forms of tuberculosis, anthrax, and glanders, are now known to be 

 infection-diseases due to the presence of microbes. These 

 microbes are in the air, the water, and the soil, in our immediate 

 surroundings, in our dwellings, and in our food ; present as our 

 constant companions and at times as our dangerous foes. 



The entrance of these germs is most easily eff'ected when 

 there is any abrasion, and thus it was in wounds that the septic 

 influence of these microbes was most apparent, and it was to their 

 exclusion from wounds that attention was first turned. 



