Xli INTEODUCTOEY NOTE. 



The word * poisons,' here provisionally employed, 

 was a concession on Budd's part to his weaker brethren ; 

 for he, without a shade of doubt, considered the poison 

 to be a real living seed. There was, I believe, but 

 one physician of eminence in England who, at the time 

 here referred to, shared this conviction, and who im- 

 parted to Budd the incalculable force derived from the 

 approbation and encouragement of a wise and cele- 

 brated man. It gives me singular pleasure to write 

 down here the name of the venerable Sir Thomas 

 Watson, who lent to William Budd unfailing counte- 

 nance and support, and who has lived to see that the 

 views which commended themselves to his philosophic 

 judgment are at the present moment advancing with 

 resistless momentum among the members of the medical 

 profession. It was far otherwise at the time to which 

 we here refer. ' Opinions like these,' said Budd, ' are 

 no doubt, at present, those of a small minority. A 

 very large, and by far the most influential school in this 

 country — a school which probably embraces the great 

 majority of medical practitioners, and the whole of 

 the " sanitary public " — holds the exact contrary ; and 

 teaches that sundry of these poisons are constantly 

 being generated de novo by the material conditions 

 which surround us.' 



Budd's remark regarding the spontaneous generation 

 of ' animals and plants, even of large species,' is both 

 pregnant and pertinent. In reference to special and 

 solitary outbreaks of contagious fever, I have frequently 

 heard physicians of distinction affirm, without apparent 

 misgiving, the ' impossibility ' of importation from 



