16 NOTES ON MICRO-ORGANISMS, 
names are familar to the Bacteriologist; for instance, Cohn, 
Koch, De Bary, Zopf, and Pasteur, whose name is associated 
with a series of splendid researches, ending in victories over the 
influence of minute, and in many cases deadly organisms, such 
as human beings and animals are at most times exposed to— 
invisible enemies that may be present in every breath of air 
taken under the ordinary conditions of our daily life in towns 
and villages. Amongst investigators, the name of Cohn should 
not be passed by here without something more than casual 
mention, for he helped largely in laying the foundations of a 
scientific study of Bacteria by very careful researches, leading to 
an improved classification, which even at the present time has its 
adherents amongst investigators. Later, we may contrast Cohn’s 
classification with the more recent and elaborate one of Zopf. 
It is painfully obvious to Englishmen that the large majority 
of the names connected with the more important Bacterial 
investigations are foreign ones. It is hardly necessary to say that 
England “as produced workers of note, but they have until lately 
been few. The main cause is probably to be found—not in the 
lack of interest in the subject—but in the restrictions to which 
medical men and others have been, and are, exposed in this 
country by the laws relating to vivisection. Whilst wishing to 
avoid argumentative matter on this point, one can hardly help 
saying that our position in this respect, in compariscn with other 
countries, is to a certain extent humiliating. No one would 
desire a sacrifice of animal life to useless or inconclusive experi- 
ment at the hands of any chance worker ; but surely we possess 
men to whom liberty (as regards vivisection) could safely be 
conceded. The marvellous and benefactory results obtained by 
Pasteur seem to prove in themselves that the sacrifice of a few 
lives may mean the saving of many, for let us consider the 
outcome of one of his researches, viz., on anthrax fever. His 
experiments necessitated the loss of a few score of sheep, but 
since the conclusion of his work many hundreds of thousands of 
animals have, there is good reason to believe, been secured by 
inoculation against the disease. 
