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Tue MIcROscoPE. 251: 
urging them, as we do, not to be contented merely with “entering 
into other men’s labors,” but to gird themselves for individual ac- 
tion, and become enthusiastic participants in this work of wresting 
from Nature, those. marvellous secrets, which sphinx-like, she has, 
for so long a period, hidden away from the knowledge of men. 
It will be the constant aim of this Magazine, to help and serve 
all such investigators by laying before them continually, the latest 
theories and discoveries ; not only such as are directly ancillary to 
the all important branches of surgery, medicine and pharmacy ; 
but, also, all and every fact or speculation that widens the field of 
human knowledge, and draws the curtain from that enchanting 
world of beauty, which the microscopic key alone unlocks. 
This is a rapidly moving age in which we live. Let us possess — 
ourselves of both its energy and activity, and by our individual 
efforts, help decorate with valuable discovery, the future of the mi- 
croscope, which, as we have seen, has been so long coming to its 
royal birth. We long for a vision of its meridian splendor. But 
when and what shall that be? And who and where is the oka 
to declare it? 
ABSTRACTS. 
BACTERIA AND DISEASE. 
T. J. BURRILL, PH.D. 
(CONTINUED. ) 
E must not, we do not by any means ascribe all forms of 
diseased conditions to parasitism. Our corporeal ma- 
chinery is altogether too complicated, too delicately adjusted and 
balanced to run smoothly forever without friction and jars from in- 
ternal and inherent failings. The vicissitudes of circumstances 
and of conditions are too varied and vigorous to count for nothing 
upon our sensitive organism, and the influence of mind on body is 
by far too great to be passed unheeded as a factor in disease; but 
we may fearlessly assert without reservation of any kind that all 
truly infectious and contagious diseases are due to some kinds of 
parasites. 
Each of these maladies has as its immediate cause a living 
thing distinct from the body itself, capable of independent growth 
under the proper conditions outside of the body, possessing the 
