92 THE FLOATING-MATTER OF THE AIR. 



were subsequently made clear to me, mainly, I ought 

 to say, by the writings and conversation of the late Dr. 

 William Budd, who was the first of our countrymen 

 to grasp with true philosophic insight the doctrine of 

 ' the vitality of contagia,' which is now every day gain- 

 ing ground. 



At the present moment, indeed, no other medical 

 principle occupies so much thought, or is the subjefctof 

 so much discussion. ' How does it happen,' says Dr. 

 Burdon Sanderson^, 'that these Bacteria, which we 

 suppose must have existed half a dozen years ago in as 

 great numbers as at present, were then scarcely heard 

 of, and that they now occupy so large a place in the 

 medical literature of this country and of Grermany, and 

 have lately afforded material for lively discussion in the 

 French Academy ? ' Dr. Sanderson points out the re- 

 lation of Lister in England, and of Hallier in Grermany, 

 to the movement regarding Bacteria which is now work- 

 ing like a ferment through the medical world. But to 

 no other workers in this field are we more indebted 

 than to Dr. Sanderson himself, and to his colleagues 

 for the continued and successful prosecution of re- 

 searches bearing upon the pathology of contagion. 



*In 1870,' writes Mr. John Simon, in one of his 

 excellent reports to the Privy Council, ' I had the honour 

 of presenting Dr. Sanderson's first report of researches 

 made in this matter. At that time general conclusions 

 seemed justified, first, that the characteristic-shaped 

 elements which the microscope had shown abounding in 

 various infective products are self-multiplying organic 

 forms, not congeneric with the animal body in which 

 they are found, but apparently of the lowest vegetable 

 kind; and, secondly, that such living organisms are 

 probably the essence, or an inseparable part of the 

 ' British Medical Journal, January 16, 1875. 



