34 
intestines of individuals suffermg from the disease. The disease- 
germs find an entrance to the bodies of the healthy in one or two 
ways, either with the air that is breathed, or with water or food 
that is swallowed. Moist air from infected sewers, or water or 
food polluted with infected sewage are the conveyors of the disease. 
You will see with me, therefore, how futile it is to talk of atmos- 
pheric influences giving rise to enteric fever, or to account for the 
epidemics of the disease in one place by the fact of its prevalence 
in other and distant parts. Happily for us such is not the case ; 
if it were so we must cease to talk of enteric fever as a preventible 
disease. I say emphatically all our knowledge proves that enteric 
fever is an eminently preventible disease, and is caused solely and 
entirely by local remediable sanitary defects—defects which allow the 
air from infected sewers to escape into our houses, or defects such 
as permit infected sewage to mix with our water or our food. It 
only remains for me to acknowledge my indebtedness to the 
writings of Huxley, Burdon-Sanderson, and Klein, for the 
materials of my paper, which lays no claim to originality; and to 
thank you for your kind attention. 
Dr. Carpenter, being called upon by the President, remarked 
that for himself he was much obliged to Dr. Philpot for 
having so nicely condensed the observations of Dr. Klein, Burdon- 
Sanderson, and others. He had shown very nicely the way in 
which certain specific forms set up certain diseases in the human 
frame. He had explained this from its commencement down to the 
very forms of life, and he (Dr. Carpenter) gathered that bacteria 
and the forms connected with them were vegetable rather than 
animal. The alliance that existed between those and fungi must 
be manifest. They knew that fungi did discharge functions in the 
same way as human beings, but, at the same time, they had no 
possible reason for being considered animals. They were vege- 
tables, and he (Dr. Carpenter) could not help thinking bacteria had 
some alliance. They, perhaps, might occupy the ground between 
vegetable and animal life, and, as they were aware, there was no 
real break in nature. Here appeared to be the meeting point. 
There were many matters in connection with this subject which at 
present physiologists did not understand. The work this Society, 
with others all over the country, was doing by bringing their powers 
to bear on microscopical research, would help to solve some points 
in time, but each point required considerable time and research, 
and it was only one out of 50,000 who had a chance of working 
them out in the way Dr. Klein had done. The observations that 
gentleman had made with reference to enteric fever had proved 
most conclusively that that disease was, at any rate, in close con- 
nection with 4 portion of vegetable matter in the human economy. 
Whether it was the cause of the fever, or whether it was the effect, 
ee 
