TUBERCULOSIS. 395 



several bits of a recent tubercle to start a culture 

 upon the surface of jellied blood-serum. It cer- 

 tainly seems that, under these circumstances, four 

 or five successive cultures are not sufficient to 

 make it entirely certain that we have obtained a 

 pure culture of the bacillus; and we may fairly 

 demand that the culture experiment should be 

 carried much beyond this point. This requires, 

 however, an amount of skilful manipulation, and 

 of patient waiting which it will be hard to obtain 

 outside of Koch's laboratory; and especially in 

 this country, where no government aid is extended 

 to those who engage in investigations of this char- 

 acter. When stimulated by the expectation of 

 making a new discovery which will make his name 

 famous, a man may accomplish wonders in explor- 

 ing difficult and unknown territory. But when 

 the ground is to be re-surveyed, and carefully 

 mapped, it is not to be expected that individual 

 enterprise will be equal to the undertaking. The 

 writer speaks with feeling in this matter, for he 

 realizes how imperfect his own attempt to repeat 

 Koch's experiments has been. 



A summary statement of the results obtained in 

 this attempt is given below, as originally reported 

 in " The Medical News " of December 30, 1882 : 



" If I have not been able to answer the question, Is 

 tuberculosis a parasitic disease? the experimental data 

 thus far furnished will at least be of use to the jury 

 the medical profession in making up a final verdict ; 

 which, I submit, would in the present stage of the in- 



