BACTERIOLOGY. 



INTRODUCTIOX. 



"Omne vivum ex vivo"— The overthrow ot the doctrine of spontaneous 

 generation— Earlier bacteriological studies— The birth of modem bacteri- 

 ology. 



The study of Bacteriology may be said to have had 

 its beginning with tlie observations of Antony van 

 Leeuwenhoek in the year 1675. Though it is during 

 the past decade and a half that this line of research 

 has received its greatest impulse, yet, by a review of 

 the developmental stages through which it has passed 

 in its life of more than two centuries, we see that it has 

 a most interesting and instructive history. From the 

 very outset its history is inseparably connected with 

 that of medicine, and as it now stands its relations to 

 hygiene and preventive medicine are of fundamental 

 importance. It is, indeed, through a more intimate 

 acquaintance with the biological activities of the uni- 

 cellular vegetable micro-organisms that modem hygiene 

 has attained the prominence and importance now justly 

 accorded to it. Through studies in the domain of bac- 

 teriology our knowledge of the causation, course, and 

 prevention of infectious diseases is daily becoming more 

 accurate, and it is needless to emphasize the relation of 

 such knowledge to the manifold problems that present 

 themselves to the student of preventive medicine. 



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