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BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS 269 



not take place in the highest animals. Indeed, 

 there is already strong evidence that some diseases 

 of an extremely malignant and fatal character to 

 which man is subject, are as much the work of 

 minute organisms as is the Pebrine. I refer for 

 this evidence to the very striking facts adduced 

 by Professor Lister in his various well-known 

 publications on the antiseptic method of treat 

 ment. It appears to me impossible to rise from 

 the perusal of those publications without a strong 

 conviction that the lamentable mortality which so 

 frequently dogs the footsteps of the most skilful 

 operator, and those deadly consequences of wounds 

 and injuries which seem to haunt the very walls 

 of great hospitals, and are, even now, destroying 

 more men than die of bullet or bayonet, are due 

 to the importation of minute organisms into 

 wounds, and their increase and multiplication ; and 

 that the surgeon who saves most lives will be he 

 who best works out the practical consequences of 

 the hypothesis of Redi. 



I commenced this Address by asking you to 

 follow me in an attempt to trace the path which 

 has been followed by a scientific idea, in its long 

 and slow progress from the position of a probable 

 hypothesis to that of an established law of nature. 

 Our survey has not taken us into very attractive 

 regions ; it has lain, chiefly, in a land flowing with 

 the abominable, and peopled with mere grubs and 

 mouldiness. And it may be imagined with what 



