332 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



noble art; it is now, as well, a noble science. Prior 

 to the introduction of the antiseptic system, the thought- 

 ful surgeon could not have failed to learn empirically 

 that there was something in the air which often de- 

 feated the most consummate operative skill. That 

 something the antiseptic treatment destroys or renders 

 innocuous. At King's College Mr. Lister operates and 

 dresses while a fine shower of mixed carbolic acid and 

 water, produced in the simplest manner, falls upon the 

 wound, the lint and gauze employed in the subsequent 

 dressing being duly saturated with the antiseptic. At 

 St. Bartholomew's Mr. Callender employs the dilute 

 carbolic acid without the spray; but, as regards the 

 real point aimed at the preventing of the wound from 

 becoming a nidus for the* propagation of septic bacteria 

 the practice in both hospitals is the same. Commend- 

 ing itself as it does to the scientifically trained mind, 

 the antiseptic system has struck deep root in Germany. 

 Had space allowed, it would have given me pleasure 

 to point out the present position of the ' germ theory ' 

 in reference to the phenomena of infectious disease, 

 distinguishing arguments based on analogy which, 

 however, are terribly strong from those based on 

 actual observation. I should have liked to follow up 

 the account I have already given * of the truly excel- 

 lent researches of a young and an unknown German 

 physician named Koch, on splenic fever, by an account 

 of what Pasteur has recently done with reference to the 

 same subject. Here we have before us a living con- 

 tagium of the most deadly power, which we can follow 

 from the beginning to the end of its life cycle. 2 We 



1 Fortnightly Review,' November 1876, see article Fermenta 

 tion.' 



* Dallinger and Drysdale had previously shown what skill and 

 patience can accomplish, by their admirable observations on the 

 life history of the monads. 



