272 NATURE AND LIFE. 



periments of Davaine, which exhibit the degree of venom 

 as increasing in an inverse ratio to the apparent quantity 

 of the poison, have been repeated and confirmed by sev- 

 eral eminent physiologists, among others by Bouley, and 

 have produced a sensation which still continues in the 

 schools of physiology and medicine. Apart from the in- 

 herent difficulty of forming a notion as to the influence of 

 those infinitesimal doses, they seemed to yield an argument 

 of a kind to support the assertions of homoeopathy. If the 

 difficulty is real, though it may be got over, the argument, 

 we take leave to say, is worthless. Let us look at the diffi- 

 culty first. This drop which is still mortal, though rep- 

 resenting only an infinitely small fraction of the original 

 quantity of poisonous matter to which it is distantly re- 

 lated, permits no corpuscle to be detected. That is true, 

 yet it contains the germs of them, and germs such in number, 

 size, and reproductive power, that nothing prevents them 

 from breeding again indefinitely, in spite of all efforts tried 

 to get rid of them. The discussions that have just occurred 

 in the Academy of Medicine on this grave subject, almost 

 at the same time that the question of ferments was under 

 debate in the Academy of Sciences, leave no doubt as to 

 the reality of this progressive breeding of virulent germs 

 by culture. But is this any argument for the homceopa- 

 thists ? None whatever. They attribute curative effects to 

 extremely small doses of certain inorganic substances most 

 evidently inert, which can in no way reproduce themselves. 

 If the virulent elements occasion disturbances so profound in 

 animal organisms, it is not by reason of their extreme minute- 

 ness, but it is because they multiply with prodigious rapidity 

 in the depths of the tissues and humors, where they labor 

 in a manner opposed to the harmonious life of the body 



However this may be, the vibrios and bacteria have an 

 undeniable share in the production of human maladies. 

 They are found in the blood of persons attacked by infec- 



