FOREWORD 3 



stitute something transparent. Brefeld and other botanists had 

 ah-eady used gelatine, for "gelatine was first employed by 

 Vittadini in 1852 in the culture of microscopic Fungi and has 

 been frequently used since that time, especially by Brefeld. 

 Klebs more recently, in 1873, recommends it especially for the 

 cultivation of bacteria." (DeBary, 1886). 



It was in 1881 that the gelatine-tube culture method and in 

 1883 that the gelatine-plate culture method were introduced by 

 Koch — his first great work, namely, that upon anthrax, and 

 also that on typhoid fever, having been done before this time, and 

 his well known "rules," "postulates" or ''laws" having also 

 been laid down before his perfection, if not before his invention, 

 of the sohd-culture method. 



The word "bacteriology" had appeared before 1886 but the 

 subject had no existence anywhere much before that time and 

 very little for a year or two later. In the United States, bac- 

 teriology was hardly heard of before 1885 but by 1890 it had 

 become well known. Unfortunately, neither Great Britain nor 

 America can make any claim to the earliest work. The terms 

 "sterilization" and "cultivation," in our modern sense, and the 

 word "microbe," were introduced by Pasteur and his school. 

 The terms "pure culture," "colony," "gelatine," "agar," 

 the use of the oil immersion objective, and the art of dyeing 

 microscopic specimens of bacteria, come from Koch and the 

 German school. Bacteriology is now, however, very widely 

 cultivated both in Great Britain and the United States, and it 

 is fitting that a Journal of Bacteriology should be pubUshed 

 in the English language in honor of the thirty or more years of 

 service which one of the broadest and most fundamental of the 

 biological sciences may now claim. 



Because of the intensely practical bearings of bacteriology 

 upon medicine, and especially because of the marvellous surgical 

 and pathological discoveries which were the first, and must ever 

 remain the greatest, fruits of bacteriology, its botanical, agri- 

 cultural, sanitary, industrial, household and economic impor- 

 tance were at first obscured and neglected. But of recent years 

 these have rapidly become clear and even conspicuous, and today 



