NATURE 



97 



THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 1891. 



THE BRITISH INSTITUTE OF PREVENTIVE 



MEDICINE. 

 'T^HE progress of bacteriological science, and the 



A amount of exact information which it has shed 

 upon the problems of disease during the last fifteen 

 years, have led several of the Governments of the Con- 

 tinent and America to establish institutes providing for 

 original research, as well as technical instruction, in 

 preventive medicine. 



This country, on the other hand, which pioneered sani- 

 tary science from its birth, has, strangely enough, been 

 distinctly behindhand in the study of bacteriology (fraught 

 as it is with interest of such vital importance to the 

 health and prosperity of the nation) ; and of the provision 

 of institutes of the kind which have been estabhshed 

 abroad, such as the Pasteur Institute in Paris, the Hy- 

 gienische Institut in Berlin, Konigsberg, Breslau, Wies- 

 baden, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa, Tiflis, Warsaw, 

 Cracow, Naples, Turin, Rome, Milan, Palermo, Malta, 

 Barcelona, Constantinople, Bucharest, Budapest, Rio 

 Janeiro, New York, Washington, we have no example 

 in the United Kingdom. In these institutions, the 

 study of the morphology, biology, physiology, and che- 

 mistry of micro-organisms, whether pathogenic or not, is 

 being actively pushed forward, and a thorough analysis 

 of their subtle influence as causative factors of disease 

 pursued. 



In this manner the poisons of the following maladies, 

 the effects of which are among the direst evils to huma- 

 nity, viz. pyasmia, anthrax, erysipelas, septicaemia, glan- 

 ders, tubercle, diphtheria, &c., have been isolated, and 

 discovered to be micro-organisms which are now known 

 certainly to be the active principle of the virus. When 

 we reflect that, for centuries and centuries, the crippling 

 effects of epidemic and devastating diseases have been 

 only too well known, but attributed to the operation of 

 all manner of causes, e.g. supernatural agencies. Divine 

 wrath, meteorological and climatic influences, &c., &c., 

 the fact that the real truth concerning the nature of their 

 causes has been ascertained only within the last few 

 years by laboratory research is, in itself, overwhelmingly 

 expressive of the immense value of Bacteriological Insti- 

 tutes and their work. 



But their value does not stop here. Knowing, as 

 thanks to bacteriology we now do, the origin of these 

 diseases, it may be asked what has the same science 

 done towards stamping them out and preventing their 

 development, or haply arresting their progress should 

 they unfortunately gain access to, and invade, the tissues 

 of the body. To express ourselves more plainly, the 

 question might be put in this form, " What has bacterio- 

 logical science done to discover the antidotes of such 

 poisons .' " The answer is, that whereas centuries of 

 clinical observation have done very little indeed — by 

 watching the sick and the employment of drugs — to- 

 wards the direct arrest of the virus of infective maladies, 

 laboratory work, on the other hand, has already provided 

 us, not merely with many invaluable and additional facts 

 to general science on the subject of immunity, vaccina- 

 NO. I 127, VOL. 44] 



tion, i.e. protection before infection, resistance of tissues 

 to invasion by parasitic organisms, &c. ; but has given to 

 medical science, what no pharmacopoeia has ever been 

 able to do— namely, chemical antidotes which by their 

 specific action upon the virus of diseases alone successfully 

 save human beings as well as the lower animals from 

 death and incapacitating illness. 



Of these new methods, perhaps the most noteworthy is 

 Pasteur's treatment of hydrophobia, but others have been 

 already discovered, and are being examined and tested 

 for practical employment in medicine and surgery. 



A large institute of this kind, however, is not reserved 

 solely for the investigation of the problems of disease— on 

 the contrary, it has a far wider sphere of usefulness. 

 Bacteriology, which Pasteur showed was the key to the 

 secrets of fermentation, is, of necessity, all-important to 

 many very extensive trades and commercial undertakings. 

 The botanical and biological researches of the Pasteur 

 Institute are thus to a large extent utilized by the French 

 manufacturers, as well as by those of other countries, to 

 their great profit. 



The particular bearing of this branch of science has 

 never been fully comprehended by the public, who are 

 not aware what an enormous debt of obligation they owe 

 to M. Pasteur, and to the extension of scientific research, 

 which received its impetus from his genius, and which has 

 resulted in so much direct gain and benefit to the com- 

 munity. In like manner, to agriculture, the questions of 

 changes in soils— such, for example, as nitrification, now 

 known to be due to the action of micro-organisms — are 

 not less important, and indeed essential. A Bacterio- 

 logical Institute, therefore, has in agriculture, quite apart 

 from the subject of diseases of animals, a fertile source 

 of work of the utmost value and assistance to practical 

 men. But, in addition, there has of later years arisen a 

 branch of chemical industry directed towards the syn- 

 thetic production of numerous substances which prove to 

 be powerful drugs. The knowledge of these is, of course, 

 incomplete and dangerous until thorough experimental 

 investigation of the action of these substances has been 

 made. In this country, however, our chemists are pre- 

 cluded, by the harassing legislation under which their co- 

 workers in physiology, pathology, and medicine labour, 

 from pursuing this useful line of research, without great 

 trouble and endless restrictions, although such work is 

 solely directed towards the therapeutic relief of disease 

 and suffering. 



The chemistry of disinfection offers in itself an extensive 

 field of research which can alone be cultivated in an 

 institution of this kind reserved for bacteriological in- 

 vestigations. 



Lastly, in such an institute two subjects of general 

 interest receive special careful attention. These are 

 (i) the technical instruction of medical men, health 

 officers, chemists, and manufacturers, in bacteriology, both 

 in its morphological and biological aspects ; and (2) the 

 examination of tissues and substances suspected to be 

 the seat or vehicle of infectious diseases and submitted 

 for investigation and report. The functions of a Bac- 

 teriological Institute, therefore, clearly involve interests 

 of the highest national as well as particular or individual 

 import. 



Since the formation of the Pasteur Mansion House 



