66 MICROBES AND THE MICROBE-KILLER. 



Besides the injurious effects produced upon the tissues 

 and the system generally, even where no seriously poi- 

 sonous results follow, many of these poisons are inju- 

 rious to the teeth and to the appearance of the skin — 

 another fact which should militate against their use. 

 All are antiseptics of more or less power, but what is 

 wanted is an antiseptic that can do no injury to the pa- 

 tient, but which shall at the same time be effectual and of 

 such a nature that it may be taken in large quantities, 

 so as to thoroughly saturate the tissues. It must be 

 capable of absorption, so that it will enter the blood. It 

 must be adapted to check, for instance, such damage to 

 the blood corpuscles as I previously explained to have 

 been observed in malaria, where the microbe acts di- 

 rectly upon the vital fluid and destroys the corpuscles 

 by attaching itself to them and absorbing them, as it 

 were, into itself. It must be fitted to take part in the 

 circulation without poisonous effects, and yet to be so 

 destructive of microbe life that it will at once destroy it, 

 and in that "v^ay free the system of all germs of disease. 



Physicians have never yet discovered any drug that is 

 as harmless as water and yet as powerful, in the right 

 way, as any of those agents I have mentioned from 

 among the list of poisons. They can have no such medi- 

 cine, for if they had they could cure disease, and that 

 they certainly cannot do, for persons die long before they 

 get old, and they should not do that if the diseases to 

 which they are subject are curable. I have tested most 

 of the drugs in general use, with a view to ascertain 

 whether they have any real power over the existence of 

 micro-organisms independently of other properties, be- 

 cause a drug may be a very powerful poison and still not 

 be an antiseptic ; and I have found that not one-half of 

 the agents mentioned in medical works, or of the formu- 

 las recommended from time to time in medical period- 

 icals, have any antiseptic properties at all. In a large 

 number of instances the whiskey or alcohol used in the 

 manufacture of tinctures and other preparations plays 

 the most important part, and it is used, in fact, itself as 



