78 The Microscopic Germ Theory of Disease. By H. C. Bastian. 
body of evidence tending to show that bacteria are pathological 
products capable of being engendered within the body after death, 
or in certain situations during life where tissue-elements are dying 
or where the fluids of the body are notably altered by disease. 
It is true that the facts and considerations mentioned under 1 and 
2 are capable of receiving another interpretation. It may be said, 
for instance, and it has actually been said by Dr. Beale, that the 
higher forms of life are, as it were, interpenetrated by the lower 
forms of life. Speaking of bacteria and their allies, Dr. Beale 
says: “I have detected them in the interior of the cells of 
animals, and in the very centre of cells, with walls so thick and 
strong that it seems almost impossible that such bodies could have 
made their way through the surrounding medium.”* And else- 
where the same observer says : “ Probably there is not a tissue 
in which these germs are not ; nor is the blood of man free from 
them.” Noting by the way that this latter statement does not 
accord with the experience of others, I may further mention 
that some distinguished pathologists, and notably Dr. Sanderson, 
are also inclined to dwell strongly upon the fact of the wide 
distribution of bacteria throughout the body — not believing them 
to be innate or connate (in the mysterious manner imagined by 
Dr. Beale), but supposing that they have been introduced from 
without through certain definite channels. 
Dr. Sanderson’s views on this subject, and the means by which 
he supports them, are sufficiently remarkable to detain us a few 
moments. If what he says f concerning the assumed easy absorp- 
tion of bacteria from the intestine by lymphatics, and their sub- 
sequent passage into the blood, were in correspondence with actual 
facts, then in face of the habitual prevalence of such organisms 
in the intestine, the blood of healthy individuals should scarcely 
ever be free from them. But this is surely proving too much, 
since Dr. Sanderson himself assures us that healthy blood is 
germless. 
Again, the other main channel by which, as he says, bacteria 
may enter into the body abundantly from without is through 
the bronchi and the lungs. Now, as a result of Dr. Sanderson’s 
oft-quoted experiments in 1871, he claims to have proved “in 
the most striking manner .... that air is entirely free from 
living microzymes .” Speaking of a previously boiled Pasteur’s 
solution, he says that “ no amount of exposure ” to air “ has any 
effect in determining the presence of microzymes therein.” And 
yet Dr. Sanderson now talks of the air which is “ entirely free from 
living microzymes ” being the channel through which these organ- 
isms are introduced into the lungs. It is true that in his recently 
published lectures this distinguished investigator makes a tacit 
* ‘ Disease Germs,’ p. 72, 1870. f 1 British Medical Journal,’ Feb. 13, 1875. 
