253 



XII. 



FERMENTATION, AND ITS SEARINGS ON 

 SURGERY AND MEDICINE* 



ONE of the most remarkable characteristics of the 

 age in which we live, is its desire and tendency to 

 connect itself organically with preceding ages to 

 ascertain how the state of things that now is came to 

 be what it is. And the more earnestly and profoundly 

 this problem is studied, the more clearly comes into 

 view the vast and varied debt which the world of to-day 

 owes to that fore-world, in which man by skill, valour, 

 and well-directed strength first replenished and subdued 

 the earth. Our prehistoric fathers may have been 

 savages, but they were clever and observant ones. 

 They founded agriculture by the discovery and develop- 

 ment of seeds whose origin is now unknown. They 

 tamed and harnessed their animal antagonists, and sent 

 them down to us as ministers, instead of rivals in the 

 right for life. Later on, when the claims of luxury 

 added themselves to those of necessity, we find the 

 same spirit of invention at work. "We have no historic 

 account of the first brewer, but we glean from history 

 that his art was practised, and its produce relished, 

 more than two thousand years ago. Theophrastus, 

 who was born nearly four hundred years before Christ, 



1 A Discourse delivered before the Glasgow Science Lectures 

 Association, October 19, 1876. 



