IN THE VICTORIAN ERA 33 



ment of bacteriology during the past sixty years. 

 To record, even in outline, the individual triumphs 

 of the various branches of this science would 

 require volumes, whilst the astounding mass of 

 work already accumulated by its devotees is but 

 the earnest, the guarantee of yet greater achieve- 

 ments in the future. 



The progress which has been made in this brief 

 period of time must not necessarily be expected 

 to continue at this rapid rate ; it may be that 

 generations to come have yet the hardest and the 

 longest tasks to accomplish ; for in science, as in 

 other walks of life, it is, as a rule, the easiest 

 problems, which are first disposed of, and the 

 farther we advance the more complicated, the 

 more intricate become the questions to be attacked, 

 the difficulties to be overcome. 



The late Queen's reign has bestowed a splendid 

 legacy of bacteriological discoveries upon those 

 who, in the future as in the present, must in- 

 evitably follow in the footsteps of those great and 

 brilliant leaders of bacteriological science belong- 

 ing to this auspicious era, Louis Pasteur and 

 Robert Koch. 



