280 FKAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



that science was becoming immoral; that the researches 

 of the past, unlike those of the present, were carried on 

 without cruelty. I replied to her that the science of 

 Kepler and Newton, to which she referred, dealt with 

 the laws and phenomena of inorganic nature; but that 

 one great advance made by modern science was in the 

 direction of biology, or the science of life; and that in 

 this new direction scentific enquiry, though at the out- 

 set pursued at the cost of some temporary suffering, 

 would in the end prove a thousand times more benefi- 

 cent than it had ever hitherto been. I said this because 

 I saw that the very researches which the lady depre- 

 cated were leading us to such a knowledge of epidemic 

 diseases as will enable us finally to sweep these scourges 

 of the human race from the face of the earth. 



This is a point of such capital importance that I 

 should like to bring it home to your intelligence by a 

 single trustworthy illustration. In 1850, two distin- 

 guished French observers, MM. Davainne and Eayer, 

 noticed in the blood of animals which had died of the 

 virulent disease called splenic -fever, small microscopic 

 organisms resembling transparent rods, but neither of 

 them at that time attached any significance to the ob- 

 servation. In 1861, Pasteur published a memoir on 

 the fermentation of butyric acid, wherein he described 

 the organism which provoked it; and after reading this 

 memoir it occurred to Davainne that splenic fever 

 might be a case of fermentation set up within the ani- 

 mal body, by the organisms which had been observed 

 by him and Eayer. This idea has been placed beyond 

 all doubt by subsequent research. 



Observations of the highest importance have also 

 been made on splenic fever by Pollender and Brauell. 

 Two years ago, Dr. Burdon Sanderson gave us a very 

 clear account of what was known up to that time of 



