FERMENTATION 305 



different to those usually resorted to. The first requisite 

 toward such propitiation is knowledge; the second is action, 

 shaped and illuminated by that knowledge. Of knowl- 

 edge we already see the dawn, which will open out by 

 and by to perfect day; while the action which is to follow 

 has its unfailing source and stimulus in the moral and 

 emotional nature of man in his desire for personal well- 

 being, in his sense of duty, in his compassionate sympathy 

 with the sufferings of his fellow-men. "How often," says 

 Dr. William Budd in his celebrated work on Typhoid 

 Fever "How often have I seen in past days, in the sin- 

 gle narrow chamber of the day- laborer's cottage the father 

 in the coffin, the mother in the sick-bed in muttering de- 

 lirium, and nothing to relieve the desolation of the chil- 

 dren but the devotion of some poor neighbor, who in too 

 many cases paid the penalty of her kindness in becoming 

 herself the victim of the same disorder!" From the van- 

 tage ground already won I look forward with confident 

 hope to the triumph of medical art over scenes of misery 

 like that here described. The cause of the calamity being 

 once clearly revealed, not only to the physician, but to 

 the public, whose intelligent co-operation is absolutely 

 essential to success, the final victory of humanity is only 

 a question of time. We have already a foretaste of that 

 victory in the triumphs of surgery as practiced at your 

 doors. 



