ON THE RELATIONS OF 



MICRO-ORGANISMS TO DISEASE. 



LECTURE I. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen : In accepting your flat- 

 tering invitation to deliver the Cartwright lectures, I 

 have, in compliance with your request, selected my 

 present subject almost the only one indeed which I 

 would venture to discuss in your presence not simply 

 because of its intrinsic importance and interest, but also 

 because there exists in the medical public of our land a 

 diversity of opinion concerning it, which is not, in my 

 estimation, warranted 'by the facts. For since trust- 

 worthy original investigations in this direction, demand- 

 ing continuous devotion of the observer to the subject 

 and the renunciation of other pursuits ; demanding spe- 

 cial training and experience ; requiring laboratory and 

 other expensive facilities ; since such investigations, 

 possible therefore in general only through State or cor- 

 porate assistance, have been, and under existing cir- 

 cumstances must be made almost exclusively in other 

 lands than ours ; since, further, important results at- 

 tained within recent years and published in foreign 

 tongues have been as yet but partially incorporated in 

 our standard literature ; since the tendency of the prac- 

 tising physician to which category we all, with rare ex- 

 ceptions, of necessity belong is ever toward the culti- 

 vation of the art rather than the science of medicine ; 

 since, finally, there is a prevalent disposition to ignore 

 the entire subject as trivial or fanciful ; for these, and 

 perhaps other reasons, there prevail, as it appears to me, 



