8 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Socvety. 
our knowledge of the habits of animals, the reproduction of 
cells, the conditions under which protoplasm may be stimu- 
lated, or its activity depressed. The organisms that are found 
in certain diseases have been classified, their modes of propa- 
gation and spread have been observed, and everything has 
been prepared for great epoch-making minds to come in and 
generalise on the facts that have been obtained, and to point 
out the gaps that still remain to be filled up before the 
theories founded can be proved to demonstration. 
In France we have Davaine and Pasteur, who, assisted by 
Chauveau and others, have given to us the germ theory of 
disease, and the theories of fermentation and protective 
inoculation. In Germany, Klebs, Koch, and their pupils, 
have made marvellous contributions to the study of bacteria 
and their relation to disease; whilst in this country (despite 
the free criticism of recent writers) Lister’s work in the 
domain of antiseptic surgery will make his name famous 
throughout all generations of surgeons, and if he had 
succeeded in achieving nothing but the extermination of the 
old methods of treating wounds, by which our hospitals were 
in many cases transformed into perfect forcing-houses for the 
growth of bacteria and septic organisms, he would have 
rendered a service to humanity the value of which cannot be 
expressed in terms that any but the most eloquent can call 
up at command. 
I find, in going over the papers published in the Proceed- 
ings of the Society, that the first paper bearing on the 
subject of bacteria was introduced by Principal Williams 
on February 19, 1879, when he dealt with “Splenic Fever, 
with a Short History of the Bacillus anthracis.” The subject 
was sufficiently interesting, but so little was generally 
known of it, that one can easily imagine that even the name 
of the Bacillus anthracis at that time (only a little more than 
eleven years ago) was familiar to scarcely a dozen members 
of the Society; whilst now, even the daily newspapers 
(than the editors of which none know better what the public 
require to interest them) contain long and accurate accounts 
of organisms which, though visible only under magnifying 
lenses of enormous power, have so real an existence in the 
