442 



GERM THEORY OF DISEASE. 



and afterward to the supreme tribunal, of which 

 Dr. Simson is the head. 



On January 24, 1879, a treaty of friendship 

 was concluded between Germany and the 

 chiefs of the Samoan Islands, which secures to 

 the German merchants great advantages. The 

 treaty was sanctioned by the German Reichs- 

 tag on June 16th. 



German trade in the South Pacific received 

 a severe blow in 1879 by the failure of the 

 house of J. C. Goddefroy & Son of Hamburg. 

 This house had for two centuries been one of 

 the largest of the German shipping - houses, 

 and had established numerous stations in the 

 South Sea Islands, notably in the Samoan 

 Islands, which were virtually owned by them. 

 In 1878 they transferred their property on 

 these islands to the " German Commercial 

 and Plantation Association of the South Seas," 

 which was formed for that purpose. In order 

 to protect the German interests at stake, it 

 was proposed to reconstruct the company, 

 which should pass under the immediate pro- 

 tection of the German Government. The 

 cooperation of Prince Bismarck was secured, 

 and a proposal to the above effect was to be 

 submitted to the Reichstag upon its meeting 

 in 1880. 



During the year 1879 there were fifteen 

 cases of cremation at Gotha. The time occu- 

 pied in each case varied from one and a half to 

 two and a half hours. The first case of crema- 

 tion occurred in Gotha on December 10, 1878. 



GERM THEORY OF DISEASE. The 

 doctrine of contagium vivum is constantly 

 being strengthened by new and substantial 

 evidence derived from laborious investigations, 

 undertaken by many scientists in different 

 countries. If it can be shown that many 

 of the epidemic and zymotic diseases are due 

 to the invasion of the animal system by mi- 

 croscopic parasitic organisms, which increase 

 with enormous rapidity, covering the tissues 

 of the body or disturbing functional action, 

 then the ways will soon be found for pre- 

 venting some of the most mysterious, incur- 

 able, and destructive maladies which befall 

 mankind, sweeping off the vigorous and the en- 

 feebled with an equal fatality. Those classes of 

 diseases which decimate the ranks of society 

 have their generic representatives in many 

 maladies to which the higher orders of animals 

 are subject, to some of which the domestic 

 animals fall a frequent prey, and from which 

 they also may be preserved when the true 

 source and nature of the disease is discovered. 

 The fact that animals are also attacked by con- 

 tagious diseases enables investigators to study 

 closely and experimentally the theory of conta- 

 gium vivum by subjecting them to infection 

 and watching the symptoms, and subsequently 

 examining the tissue and fluids of their bodies 

 under the microscope to detect the expected 

 parasitic destroyers. 



The discovery that splenic fever is caused 

 by the presence of a bacillus is followed by the 



detection, hy the minute investigations of Dr. 

 Klein, of another bacillus as the cause of a 

 second disease to which one of the higher 

 animals is subject the infectious pneumo- 

 enteritis or typhoid fever of the pig. Culti- 

 vating the bacillus in such a way as to obtain 

 it free from the presence of any other organ- 

 ism, he inoculated healthy swine with the fluid 

 containing the bacteria. In due time the dis- 

 ease appeared, and followed its course with the 

 usual train of symptoms. From the dried 

 blood of horses which had died in India of the 

 " Loodiana fever," which has committed fear- 

 ful devastations in the East, a crop of Bacillus 

 anthraeis was raised in the Brown Institution 

 in England, with which other animals were in- 

 fected. Experiments proved that the exhaust- 

 ed malt from breweries upon which cattle are 

 often fed affords a soil in which these bacteria 

 thrive remarkably well. Cattle were infected 

 with the anthrax by feeding them with such 

 grain in which the bacillus had been cultivated. 

 The practice of feeding stock with brewery 

 refuse is therefore a constant source of dan- 

 ger ; only recently the disorder broke out in a 

 previously uninfected district in England, and 

 inquiry showed that the cattle which suffered 

 had all been fed upon grains procured at one 

 particular brewery. 



Dr. Koch, who a couple of years ago estab- 

 lished the fact that splenic fever was always 

 accompanied by a multiplication of the bacte- 

 rial organism known as Bacillus antJiracis, has 

 turned his attention lately to infectious trau- 

 matic diseases, or those infectious disorders 

 which originate in the introduction of poison- 

 ous matter through a wound. The presence 

 of bacteria in the blood and tissues in these 

 diseases has long been observed. In order to 

 establish the doctrine of contagium vivum, it is 

 necessary to prove not only that the bacteria are 

 not merely incidental or resultant concomitants 

 of the morbid symptoms, but that they are 

 not introduced into the wound along with the 

 poison or otherwise, and multiply because the 

 tissue affords them nourishment, while the 

 toxic effects are produced by a specific poison- 

 ous substance. To prove this, it is enough to 

 show that each disease is attended by a distinct 

 and well-characterized bacterial form, which 

 coexists with the particular symptoms, and is 

 present in sufficient quantities to produce the 

 morbid derangement, while on the other hand 

 the different bacteria are never present in the 

 tissue without being accompanied by the same 

 particular symptoms. Koch's experiments for 

 this purpose were very extensive. His method 

 was to inoculate mice or rabbits with decom- 

 posing animal matter, and notice if any morbid 

 symptoms resulted, and then to subject the tis- 

 sues of the infected animal to a microscopic 

 examination for the same form of microphyte 

 which was contained in the injected fluid. In 

 a series of experiments for producing septica3- 

 mia in mice, he found that putrid blood in- 

 jected under their skin produced death in a 





