724 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION I. 
course, was previous to the days of stamimg. “ Fungi,” 
says Dr. Beale, who, I am very glad to say, 1s still living, 
“can no more be regarded as a cause of disease than vultures 
which consume the carcase of the dead man, the cause of his 
death.” (Beale, “ Disease Germs,” p. 79.) _““ No connec- 
tion has been shown to exist between contagious disorders ° 
and any kind of fungus” (Jdem, p. 82). Scarlet fever, and 
the like, were then attributed to telluric or atmospheric in- 
fluences, to the malevolence of damp soil, and the baneful- 
ness of re-breathed air, laden with organic, but not living, 
particles. Still, the ground at this time was partly pre- 
pared for the reception of the new theory, namely, the dis- 
semination of contagious disorders by living microbic in- 
fluences; and, when Koch’s work on the infective maladies 
appeared, his doctrines were received with a readiness that 
I do not think has ever been equalled in the annals of 
medicine. It seemed to account for so much which had 
been such an enigma to us. As you are aware, any new 
suggestion takes a long time to obtain even respect from the 
general body of the profession, and is usually most strongly 
condemned by those who have had the least opportunity of 
inquiring into the subject. Still, clinically, there were at 
times several indications which led grave men to strongly 
suspect that infectious and contagious diseases were in some 
way connected with a germ growth. Microbes lying dor- 
mant in some unsuitable breeding-ground were, by acci- 
dental cultivation, and transportation to more favourable 
sites, enabled to fructify, and, by their proliferation, exercise 
an enormous influence in the propagation of disease. The 
march of cholera was an instance. 
Starting from a low lying jungle in Bengal, where it had 
long been known and designated as the ‘“‘ white diarrhea,” it 
suddenly changed its endemic and comparatively harmless 
characteristics into the epidemic and malignant disease which 
spread so much over India and Europe about the third 
decade of last century. Its progress, in spite of winds and 
meteorological obstructions always in the path of traffic and 
trade communications, ever down stream, and never up, 
pointed to some living molecule as the cause of the epidemic. 
At this time, military authorities and hygienic experts were 
strongly opposed to the germ theory. The Germans 
favoured it much. Still, I remember that, long before the 
isolation of a cholera bacillus, many of us suspected the exist- 
ence of some such thing, and acted accordingly. Conse- 
quently, when the discovery was announced, and it was 
clearly shown that these contagious febrile diseases were 
entirely due to the multiplication of vegetable germs, the 
