146 THE GERM THEORY OF DISEASE. 



seems very probable that this will be the final solution of 

 the problem. Indeed, we may say that from all that is now 

 known, this seems certain. But it is not from the formation 

 of the alkaloids alone that we will find these effects produced. 

 The organic acids will be found to have their share in the 

 work; also various irritants, and the digestive bodies de- 

 veloped by the organisms. It will be found that, all of these 

 products are formed together and do their work together, 

 producing the complex results that we see in the complicated 

 forms of disease so frequently met with. 



While the mere physical presence of organisms will in no 

 case account for the effects ascribed to them in the production 

 of disease, they cannot be entirely ignored. When bacteria 

 or micrococci are gathered together in groups and large 

 masses (zooglia) in the tissues, they will certainly have some 

 evil influence by their mere presence in such situations, 

 especially when this happens to be in important organs. 

 Also, the fixed material laid up in these cells may, after the 

 death of the organisms, have its influence. But I am per- 

 suaded that neither of these causes is the potent factor in the 

 production of disease. 



I would not have you suppose, however, that we can have 

 no disease without micro-organisms. Man may be abused by 

 the life forms around him, and man may abuse himself. He 

 may eat too much good food and suffer in consequence. He 

 may injudiciously expose himself to the inclemencies of the 

 weather, and start serious inflammation of important organs. 

 He may exhaust his energies by overwork, and suffer all the 

 consequences that anaemia brings in its terrible train. He 

 may suffer from faults in the physiological activity of his 

 own tissues, from neoplasms, as cancer sarcoma, lipoma, and 

 very many other affections that the micro-organisms do not 

 have to answer for. 



