MICRO-ORGANISMS IN RELATION TO MAN. 10g 
and which wards off the attacks of these insidious foes. The 
cholera epidemics of the past two summers have shown the 
value of this isolation from the rest of Europe. 
But it was not left for us to discover the value, in this 
respect, of England’s sea frontier. Shakespear, in his play 
of Richard II, says :— 
“This fortress, built by nature for herself, 
Against zfectéon and the hand of war; 
This realm, this England,” 
showing that the effect, if not the cause, was recognised even 
in pre-sanitation days. 
We owe to a celebrated French writer, Dumas the elder, 
the cynical expression, ‘‘ Cherchez la femme,’ but I think you 
will agree with me that now, on the eve of the twentieth 
century, we may add to this the expression ‘ Cherchez le 
microbe,” for every day shows us, more and more, how om- 
nipotent are these organisms, whose very existence was 
questioned five-and-twenty years ago. 
I had intended to have referred to the question of preventive 
inoculation and immunity, questions which are daily assuming 
greater importance, but time will not allow me to even touch 
upon the fringe of this most interesting branch of the subject. 
Perhaps on some future occasion I may have an opportunity 
todo so. I do not want you, however, to think that the work 
of the bacteriologist simply consists in finding out what organ- 
ism is associated with any particular disease. That is the 
first step. The second is to devise some means by which its 
ravages can be held in check, or even prevented. The fore_ 
going results constitute but the first stage; hundreds of 
patient workers are following these up into the domain of 
prevention. This branch of work requires the very greatest 
care and the utmost attention to minute details, both in order 
to ensure accuracy in the results, and also the safety of the 
worker. 
As I intimated earlier in the evening, cases are on record 
in which the worker has fallen a victim to the micro-organism 
