26 PATHOGENIC BACTERIA. 



gravity of the matter at hand ; this is his deliberate and 

 almost solemn appeal : ' With the view of settling these 

 questions, therefore, we may carefully prepare an infusion 

 from some animal tissue, be it muscle, kidney, or liver ; 

 we may place it in a flask whose neck is drawn out 

 and narrowed in the blowpipe flame ; we may boil the 

 fluid, seal the vessel during ebullition, and, keeping it 

 in a warm place, may await the result, as I have often 



done After a variable time the previously heated 



fluid within the hermetically-sealed flask swarms more 

 or less plentifully with bacteria and allied organisms, 

 even though the fluids have been so much degraded in 

 quality by exposure to the temperature of 212 F., and 

 have in all probability been rendered far less prone to 

 engender independent living units than the unheated 

 fluids in the tissues would be.' ' 



These somewhat lengthy quotations are of great in- 

 terest, for they show exactly the state of the scientific 

 mind at a period as recent as twenty years ago. 



In 1877 the introduction of the anilin dyes by Weigert 

 made possible a much more thorough investigation of 

 the bacteria by enabling the observers to color them 

 intensely, and thus detect their presence in tissues and 

 organs where their transparency had caused them to be 

 overlooked. 



Rapid strides were immediately made, and before 

 another decade had passed discoveries were so numerous 

 and convincing that it was impossible to doubt that bac- 

 teria were causes of disease. 



Before the publication of the discoveries of which we 

 speak, however, there was suggested a practical applica- 

 tion of the little known about bacteria which produced 

 greater agitation and incited more observation and ex- 

 perimentation than anything suggested in surgery since 

 the introduction of anesthetics namely, antisepsis. 



u The seminal thought of antiseptic surgery may per- 

 haps be traced to John Colbach, a member of the College 

 of Physicians, England, whose collection of tracts, printed 



