IN THE VICTORIAN ERA 5 



into the field, and the bacterial fever has been 

 hardly less pronounced in these last years than 

 that rush for a material golden harvest which 

 has characterised so many enterprises in southern 

 latitudes. 



The scientific results of this microbe fever have 

 happily, however, been of a more solid and sub- 

 stantial character than can be said to have 

 followed the more tangible but sordid ventures 

 in South African mines. Vague hypotheses have 

 given place to facts, and bacteria have been 

 brought more and more within the horizon of 

 human knowledge, thanks to the genius and un- 

 tiring zeal of investigators all over the world. 



By mechanical improvements in microscopes, 

 and subtle methods for colouring bacteria, enabling 

 us to study their form with precision, by ingenious 

 devices for supplying them with suitable food 

 materials, or, in other words, by the creation of 

 bacterial nurseries, providing the means for watch- 

 ing their growth and observing their distinctive 

 habits and character, this important branch of 

 the vegetable kingdom has been raised from 

 obscurity to one of the principal places in our 

 catalogue of sciences, and Bacteriology has won 

 for itself an individual footing in the scientific 

 curriculum of our great educational institutions, 

 and is represented in literature by such famous 



