74 A DISEASE GARDEN 
list of noxious plants by indicating the diseases they give rise 
to—diseases due to vegetable organisms and known as infect- 
ious. : 
“Infectious Disease.”’—Bubonic or Oriental plague, 
smallpox, cholera, diphtheria, membranous croup, erysipelas, 
scarlatina, scarlet fever, the fevers known by any of the fol- 
lowing names—typhus, typhoid, enteric, relapsing. continued 
or puerperal, and also any other disease which the Governor- 
in-Council, on the recommendation of the Commissioner, and 
from time to time by notification in the Gazette, brings under 
the provisions of this Act, either generally or with respect to 
any particular place. 
And it is the duty of the Health Authorities adminis- 
tering the Act, if possible, to destroy, or as it is called stamp- 
out these infections. 
The terms, Infection, Infectious and Infective refer 
only to those diseases which are caused by pathogenic (disease 
producing) germs, which enter into the tissues from without, 
and are capable of multiplying in the same.—Kanthack. 
Contagion, Contagium, Contact, Contagious, refer to 
Infectious Diseases which are communicated directly from 
one person to another.—Osler. 
“Infection includes contagion.’’—Kanthack. 
The word germ, having been associated with disease, 
introduces us to :— 
The Germ Theory of Disease which feaches :—that 
certain ailments are due to the action of certain germs. To 
extend this :—that, in man and animals, certain Diseases 
which may be local, or general. or both; acute (hours) or 
chronic (years); mild, or almost certainly fatal, and whose 
chief lesions or symptoms are due to poisonous effects 
(intoxicants, toxins) and mechanical interference—are depend- 
ent upon the presence, multiplication and conduct in the blood, 
lymph or tissues of the affected individual of a minute organism 
(Germ) which requires an Incubation Period of varying length, 
for the first manifestations of its existence. 
The natural question now is—‘‘ How can this be proved ? ” 
or ‘“ On what foundation is this theory raised ?”’ Professor 
Robert Koch, he, who, in 1882, made himself and the year 
