MICROPHYTES FOUND IN THE BLOOD. 361 



healthy blood which we had examined. ^ It is however, obvious 

 that though it is possible that the blood may be constantly 

 replenished with a greater or less number of these organisms, yet 

 they do not accumulate to any great extent therein, and it may 

 be safely affirmed that their presence in appreciable numbers is, 

 judging from experience, incompatible with a state of perfect 

 health. It will hereafter be seen that the same remarks does 

 not hold good as regards parasites of, apparently, animal nature. 



It may be affirmed, further, that in certain diseased conditions 

 microphytes are very generally present, though perhaps not 

 invariably, nor is their number coincident with the gravity of the 

 malady. Omitting the cases in which these organisms have been 

 found associated with disease in insects (on account of the diffi- 

 culty of isolating and clearly identifying such organisms as are 

 found in the blood in these cases from those found in the tissues 

 generally), it may be stated tliat it has been clearly established 

 that one or other of the forms of fission-fungi have been found in 

 the blood in two diseases, viz. in charhon^ mat de rate or splenic 

 fever, and in reciirrent fever. M. Pasteur has recently main- 

 tained that a third should be added to the list — sepiiccBmia ; and, 

 still more recently, a fourth has been added by Dr. Klein, 

 namely, the disease commonly known as " typhoid fever" of 

 the pig. 



These matters have, during the last few years, received great 

 attention from thoughtful members of the medical profession, and 

 probably at the present time no subject of a scientific character is 

 being more closely investigated. 



The importance of thoroughly sifting the evidence on which the 

 interpretations which have been placed oq the significance of such 

 organisms in the blood can scarcely be over-rated, seeing that, should 

 the view now commonly advanced, prove to be correct, the theory 

 and practice of medicine would be radically affected and, possibly, 

 the future action of the State with regard to disease be materially 

 modified. Before making an attempt to institute such an exami- 

 nation, it may be well to refer briefly to the more salient circum- 

 stances which have conduced to make the present doctrine of the 

 causative relation to disease of these low forms of plant-life so 

 attractive to botanists and to the medical profession. "The 

 foundations of the germ theory of disease in its most commonly 

 accepted form,'' writes Dr. Charlton Bastian,^ "were laid in 1836 



^ Cholera : " A Report of Microsco])ical and Physiological Researches," 

 Series, I, Appendix A, ' Eighth Annual Report of the Sanitary Commis- 

 sioner with the Government of India,' 1872. 



2 Paper read before the Pathological Society of London, April 6th, 1875. 

 'Lancet,' vol. i, p. 501, 1875. 'Britibh Medical Journal,' vol. i, p. 4G9, 

 1875. 



