14 PHARMACEUTICAL BACTERIOLOGY. 



that these changes were due to chemical substances. However, such men 

 as Pasteur, Koch, Panum, Klebs, and others forged link after link in the 

 chain of evidence connecting the causative relationship of bacteria to disease. 



Period IV. 



From Pasteur (1862) to Behring (1890). (Period of remarkable 

 activity in pathological bacteriology.) 



It would be impossible in a brief review to cite all of the important 

 investigations of this period. Pasteur, Koch, and others had already given 

 the subject of bacteriological technic considerable attention. The most 

 suitable culture media, laboratory apparatus, stains, etc., were determined. 

 The compound microscope had now reached a high degree of perfection, and 

 the oil-immersion lenses made the closer study of the morphology of bacteria 

 possible. 



As might be expected, the importance of germicides irr^urgery received 

 first attention. The "laudable pus-" formation ideas were at^andoned. It 

 became the surgeon's duty to induce " primary union" or healing by " first 

 intention," that is, healing without any pus formation whatever. This 

 demanded that the surfaces of the incision be brought in close contact, and 

 that all bacterial infection be prevented by the use of antiseptic dressings, 

 antiseptic solutions in the form of irrigations and sprayings, etc. Sir Joseph 

 Lister, of Scotland (1875), brought the use df disinfectants in surgery to a 

 high degree of perfection, and modern antiseptic surgery is often designated 

 "Listerism." The modern proprietary antiseptic "listerine" is named 

 after this eminent surgeon. The chief antiseptic of Lister and his followers 

 was carbolic acid, which was used for free wound irrigation and general 

 disinfection. He operated in a spray of carbolic acid solution. As late as 

 1890 there was to be found an occasional lecturer in a college of medicine 

 who held out against the germ theory, and not a small number of the eminent 

 opponents mentioned in the previous period carried their mistaken notions 

 with them to the grave. 



The name of Robert Koch will stand throughout the ages as the leader in 

 modern bacteriological science. Early in life he was convinced of the cor- 

 rectness of the germ theory of disease, but his first contributions to bacterio- 

 logical' science awakened a storm of opposition. Billroth, of Vienna, and 

 others persisted in declaring that microbes were not causative of pus-forma- 

 tion or of the development of disease; but that microbes might be accident- 

 ally present, due to the action of a " phlogistic zymoid" which developed in 

 the animal organism. 



In 1882 the French government sent a medical commission to India to 

 determine if possible the cause of Asiatic cholera, but the commission re- 



