IN THE VICTORIAN ERA 19 



time believed to be a stranger to the colony. 

 Recently the idea has been revived by Mr. Pound, 

 the Government bacteriologist at Brisbane, in con- 

 sequence of his discovery that chicken-cholera, far 

 from not existing in Australia, has infested poultry 

 yards more or less extensively for several years 

 past, although it has only lately been accurately 

 diagnosed as such. This chicken-cholera microbe 

 is particularly well suited for the work in question, 

 inasmuch as, whilst extremely fatal to rabbits, it 

 produces, like Loeffler's bacillus, no ill effect 

 whatever on farm-stock of various kinds, and is 

 perfectly harmless to man, so that its handling by 

 the uninitiated is not attended with any personal 

 danger. 



This brings us to what may be designated the 

 human side of bacteriology, i.e. its relation to 

 disease and its prevention. In these important 

 departments of life the services already rendered 

 by this infant prodigy of science can as yet be 

 only approximately appreciated. Anthrax, tuber- 

 culosis, cholera, typhoid, plague, influenza, tetanus, 

 erysipelas, are only a few of the diseases the active 

 agents of which bacteriology has revealed to us. 

 Bacteriology has, however, not been content to 

 merely identify particular micro-organisms with 

 particular diseases, it has striven to devise means 

 by which such diseases may be mastered, and one 



