XII 



FERMENTATION, AND ITS BEARINGS ON SURGERY AND 

 MEDICINE * 



ONE of the most remarkable characteristics of the 

 age in which we live, is its desire and tendency 

 to connect itself organically with preceding ages 

 — to ascertain how the state of things that now is came to 

 be what it is. And the more earnestly and profoundly 

 this problem is studied, the more clearly comes into view 

 the vast and varied debt which the world of to-day owes 

 to that fore- world, in which man by skill, valor, and well- 

 directed strength first replenished and subdued the earth. 

 Our prehistoric fathers may have been savages, but they 

 were clever and observant ones. They founded agricult- 

 ure by the discovery and development of seeds whose 

 origin is now unknown. They tamed and harnessed their 

 animal antagonists, and sent them down to us as min- 

 isters, instead of rivals in the fight for life. Later on, 

 when the claims of luxury added themselves to those of 

 necessity, we find the same spirit of invention at work. 

 "We have no historic account of the first brewer, but we 

 glean from history that his art was practiced, and its 

 produce relished, more than two thousand years ago. 

 Theophrastus, who was born nearly four hundred years 



* A Discourse delivered before the Glasgow Science Lectures As80ciatioH| 

 October 19, 1876. 



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