SCIENCE-CULTURE FOR THE MASSES. 37 



novo from the meat itself; whilst Redi, on the contrary, 

 showed his contemporaries, by the simple experiment of 

 placing gauze over the meat, that the maggots in reality were 

 developed from eggs which had been deposited in the meat 

 by parent-flies. Thus a case of what was termed "spon- 

 taneous generation " a stout belief in which was, by the 

 Churchmen of Redi's days, emphatically " nail'd wi' Scrip- 

 tur 5 " was disposed of in the simplest possible manner by 

 the quiet observation of a single student of life-science. We 

 can trace the progress of Redi's doctrine, " omnc vivum ex 

 TIVO" along the line of the intervening centuries, as marked 

 by many a foray and many a stout contest We follow it 

 from the time of Needham and Buffon, and that of Spallan- 

 zani with his "universal germ theory," promulgated to 

 account in his day, as we do in ours, for the production of 

 living organisms in all sorts of out-of-the-way places. And 

 we can best of all witness in our own day, at our very doors, 

 and in our own persons, the beneficial effects of the reform 

 movement begun by the physician of Florence some two 

 hundred or more years ago. For to-day, and in the midst 

 of the great centres of civilization, our sick are being success- 

 fully treated on the principles which are essentially those of 

 Redi and his disciples. We find Professor Lister and his 

 followers busied with the " antiseptic system " of treatment, 

 which takes as its keynote and standpoint the fact that the 

 germs of lower animal life and plant life existing unseen in 

 the air around us but visible to the scientific gaze are the 

 prime causes of much suffering and frequent death after 

 surgical operations. And proceeding to exclude the germs, 

 as did Redi of old, we now can attempt, and successfully 

 perform, operations for the cure of suffering humanity, which 

 operations, prior to the inauguration of the antiseptic system, 

 would have been deemed in many cases of unjustifiable 

 character. This principle of recognising the " particulate " 

 or material and organic origin of many diseases or in other 

 words, the "germ theory of disease'' underlies the practice 

 of the most advanced school of modern medical thought 



