X INTRODUCTION. 



soon ma'de. I extended the operations of my discoveiy 

 so as to leave no possible room for doubt as to its uni- 

 versal application, and then I determined to submit the 

 whole case to the public. 



This book is the consequence of that resolve. In its 

 pages I have given a detailed statement of the new 

 discovery which points to a unity in the cause and 

 treatment of disease. From day to day steps are being 

 made by advocates of the old theories which advance 

 them slowly in the direction I have taken. Intermit- 

 tent fever, cholera, scarlet fever, influenza, and the 

 recently named ^' Grippe," as well as other diseases, are 

 acknowledged to be due to the presence of microbes, but 

 the time will come when the people must free them- 

 selves from the bondage of ignorance now urged upon 

 them, to accept the undoubted fact that all disease is 

 due to the same cause, and that treatment, to be bene- 

 ficial, must be directed to the single object of stopping 

 fermentation in the system by destroying the micro- 

 organisms that give rise to it. This is no longer a 

 theory subject to refutation or needing proof. In the 

 subsequent pages I have endeavored to bring it within 

 the grasp of the most superficial reader, but I have also 

 furnished irrefutable testimony to its truth and stability. 

 It is not an hypothesis, but a demonstrated law, and its 

 reality is well fixed by practical experiment and by the 

 evidence of accomplished facts. 



The subject is of interest not only to a few, but to the 

 many ; to everybody, in fact, who may be subject to 

 disease or ailments of any kind. It promises relief 

 where cures have hitherto been deemed impossible, and 

 it places the sick and ailing in a position where they 

 shall be free from the expense and uncertainty of cus- 

 tomary methods, and able to follow^ out the only known 

 rational treatment for themselves. 



I do not expect to be exempt from criticism. On the 

 contrary, I invite inquiry and examination in a spirit of 

 honest impartiality. Physicians will probably act under 

 the customary impulse of doubting, possibly of con- 



