8 THE BRADSHAW LECTURE 



manner of its distribution have long been studied, 

 it is difficult to disentangle men's thoughts from 

 this erroneous teaching. So deeply was this view 

 of its constitutional origin instilled in the minds 

 of the profession that acute observers shut their 

 eyes to the most obvious cases of infection ; yet 

 there must have been some sceptics even in those 

 days of darkness, for I find the late Sir Samuel 

 Wilks writing in the ' Guy's Hospital Reports,' 

 for 1869 as follows :* 



It does appear most remarkable that whilst many of us 

 have been speaking in the most positive terms of the inherited 

 causes of consumption, there have been those who have no 

 hesitation in looking upon it as a disease, like smallpox, 

 accidentally introduced from without. 



These believers in an outside cause were at that 

 time in a hopeless minority. The great text-book 

 authority. Sir Thomas Watson, thundered out his 

 opinion as follows : 



Is phthisis contagious ? No, I verily believe it is not. A 

 diathesis is not communicable from person to person ; nor is 

 the disease ever imparted to another, even by one scrofulous 

 individual to another. 



He then proceeds to explain away a most obvious 

 instance of infection : 



* " On the Nature and Causes of Disease," ' Guy's Hospital 

 Reports,' 1869, p. 19. 



