328 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



of exact observation to biological questions gave him 

 an insight into the workings of that most mysterious 

 of all poisons, the virus of hydrophobia. 



Of the magnitude and far-reaching character of 

 Pasteur's work we may form a notion when we 

 remember that it is to him that we owe the foundation 

 of the science of bacteriology, a science treating of 

 the ways and means of those minute organisms called 

 microbes, upon whose behaviour the very life not 

 only of the animal, but perhaps also of the vegetable 

 kingdom depends a science which bids fair to re- 

 volutionise both the theory and practice of medicine, 

 and one which has already, in the hands of Lord Lister, 

 given rise to a new and beneficent application in the 

 discovery of aseptic surgery. 



On October ;th, 1889, as President of the Midland 

 Institution in Birmingham, I also delivered an address 

 on Pasteur termed "The Life-work of a Chemist." 



About this time I wrote several articles for The 

 Speaker on the subject of the application of bacteriology 

 to the prevention and cure of disease. One of these, 

 entitled " New Developments of Vaccination," gave a 

 history of Pasteur's discoveries as regards the immunity 

 brought about by inoculation with various anti-toxins. 

 Another was a description of Koch's supposed dis- 

 covery as to the cure of consumption. In a third 

 article, under the title of " The New Battle of Life," I 

 explained the recent discoveries with regard to the 

 germ theory of disease, pointing out the importance 

 of Metchnikoffs discovery of phagocytosis, viz., that 

 the blood of animals, as is well known, contains white 

 blood corpuscules which are endowed with a life of 

 their own and make war upon any foreign and toxic 

 bacteria which may have gained entrance into the 

 body. These may be termed, indeed, the out-lying posts 



