I 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND SUMMARY. 133 



<*ine. This I usually preserved for the purpose of learn- 

 ing whether the medicine would stop the fermentation. 

 I kept the matter in carefully stopped bottles, and inva- 

 riably I found that the fermentation continued. The 

 microbes were not killed, but they went on multiplying 

 throughout the whole time, showing that the medicine 

 that had been given was utterly useless to destroy the 

 cause of disease. Physicians are well aware of the in- 

 effectiveness of many of their remedies, and they are 

 willing to acknowledge among themselves that the only 

 really powerful drugs in battling with microbes are fatal 

 also to the patient. Of these the principal are corrosive 

 sublimate and carbolic acid, but they must be used in 

 considerable strength. Strong alcohol has no effect on 

 dried microbes, but, especially if used in its fullest 

 strength, it is a powerful agent when the germs are in 

 a moistened condition. Boracic acid, once thought of 

 so much value, has been shown to possess no action 

 whatever, after ten days' trial the germs resisting it 

 most effectually. Iodine has been tried for forty-eight 

 hours, and found also to produce no effect. Chloride 

 of zinc, oil of turpentine, thymol, and eucalyptol have 

 yielded similar negative results. Ointments of iodoform 

 and iodol are equally ineffectual. The strongest iodo- 

 form simply retarded the development of microbes after 

 twelve hours' exposure. It did not kill them. Hot wa- 

 ter does not destroy them, unless it be raised to near the 

 boiling temperature. Permanganate of potash has been 

 recommended, but the effect here is curious. Instead 

 of the salt killing the microbe, the microbe decomposes 

 the permanganate and renders it ineffectual. Peroxide, 

 of hydrogen is uncertain, and at the best produces very 

 little effect, and chlorate of potash is, for all practical 

 purposes, useless. 



In like manner, physicians admit, as the teaching of 

 experiment, that oil of mustard, arsenious acid, and 

 even the much- vaunted salicylic acid, are quite unreli- 

 able and inefficient. It comes, in fact, to this, that the 

 three most powerful agents used by the doctors are car- 



