XII. 



FERMENTATION, AND ITS BEARINGS ON 

 SURGERY AND MEDICINE* 



ONE of the most remarkable characteristics of the 

 age in which we live is its desire and tendency 

 to connect itself organically with preceding ages to 

 ascertain how the state of things that now is came to 

 be what it is. And the more earnestly and profoundly 

 this problem is studied, the more clearly comes into 

 view the vast and varied depth which the world of to- 

 day owes to that fore-world in which man by skill, 

 valour, and well-directed strength first replenished and 

 subdued the earth. Our prehistoric fathers may have 

 been savages, but they were clever and observant ones. 

 They founded agriculture by the discovery and de- 

 velopment of seeds whose origin is now unknown. 

 They tamed and harnessed their animal antagonists, 

 and sent them down to us as ministers, instead of rivals 

 in the fight for life. Later on, when the claims of lux- 

 ury added themselves to those of necessity, we find the 

 same spirit of invention at work. We have no historic 

 account of the first brewer, but we glean from history 

 that his art was practised, and its produce relished, 

 more than two thousand years ago. Theophrastus, 

 who was born nearly four hundred years before Christ, 



* A Discourse delivered before the Glasgow Science Lectures 

 Association, October 19, 187G. 



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