340 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



incidents connected with our daily lives. The germ of fever 

 or other contagion may enter our systems through food, 

 drink or air ; the dog may go mad ; the bull may gore us ; 

 the railroad train may be derailed ; our horse may run away, 

 or the wagon break ; the mowing machine may upset and 

 injure us ; lightning may strike, or the engine blow up ; 

 electric wires may bring sudden death ; and the grade-cross- 

 ing may menace our existence. Wherever we go and what- 

 ever we do, possibilities of danger to life are on every hand. 

 The truth of this is seen not only in the experience and ob- 

 servation of every person, but in the news items which the 

 daily papers bring to us each morning and evening. And 

 yet the danger which exists exists chiefly in the aggregate. 

 The personal chances of injury are very slight. The propor- 

 tion of people injured to all of the human race is small ; our 

 individual chance of immunity from accident is large. 



But there is one marked difference between the dangers 

 from physical accident and the danger from disease germs. 

 Surg. -Gen. Alfred H. Holt of Cambridge read a lecture 

 before the State Board of Agriculture in Springfield in 1887. 

 It was my duty to report that lecture, which I did by inter- 

 viewing Dr. Holt at his home in Cambridge, and preparing 

 an abstract from the manuscript in advance of its delivery. 

 It was an explanation of the germ theory of disease, includ- 

 ing typhoid fever, diphtheria, tuberculosis and other diseases, 

 in which he said that this explanation of the origin of many 

 diseases ' ' is more a condition that has been forced upon us 

 by the teachings of the microscope and the laboratory than a 

 theory." After preparing the report, I asked him how it 

 happened, in view of the prevalence of these germs and the 

 ever-present possibility of their getting into our systems, that 

 there was any human race left. His explanation made a 

 strong impression upon me at the time, and has often been 

 recalled during the heated discussions over the possibilities 

 of any germs being conveyed in milk. The doctor explained 

 clearly that health is the natural condition of the human race, 

 and that the forces of nature are working for health all of the 

 time. The germs get in their deleterious work chiefly when 

 nature is in some way handicapped, — by weakness or other 

 abnormal conditions, — rendering the system favorable for 



