ORIGIN OF DISEASE AND THE GERM THEORY. 133 



help of the light thrown upon them by the normal and abnormal 

 processes presented by lower animals. Nevertheless, already it 

 is the case that many talented pathologists are beginning to 

 track out new paths leading to fertile regions, and now is the 

 time for very many more earnest and zealous workers. There 

 are, indeed, immense stores of knowledge to be gained, and 

 many fruitful opportunities are available for all those investiga- 

 tors who are desirous of throwing more light on the many 

 abstruse problems presented by disease. This present time is one 

 of transition, and many of our ideas as to the processes of life, 

 both well-ordered and disordered, will probably be ere long very 

 essentially modified and changed. The mysteries of life, disease, 

 and death, are now being marvellously cleared up. We are 

 beginning to see things in their truer light, and to understand 

 that gradual working, in accordance with necessary causation and 

 connection is the rationale of all that goes on around us. 



Now it is not too much to say that the idea that certain 

 diseases are caused by the presence and growth of minute vege- 

 table forms in the blood and tissues is one of the most impor- 

 tant of all the generalisations which have ever been made in 

 regard to the causation of diseases, and consequently also in re- 

 ference to both the prevention and the cure of them. Hence we 

 propose to introduce our discussion with a few words respecting 

 this momentous discovery, and we would, while so doing, point 

 out in passing, that, densely congregated together as human 

 beings are in the innumerable towns and cities of the world, 

 they are always liable to imbibe, both by the medium of the lungs 

 and by that of the stomach, the various poisonous substances 

 produced in the course of nature, and also the germs of the 

 numerous diseases liable to be present. A new world of organisms, 

 doubtless the causes of certain different diseases with which par- 

 ticular kinds of them are found associated, has been revealed to 

 investigators by the help of modern microscopic methods. Hence 

 we have been led to look upon the phenomena of zymotic 

 diseases in particular, and also to some extent upon all the ab- 

 normal processes of animals generally, in some measure from 

 this point of view. Now, men are gradually building up one 

 true science of pathology and therapeutics, as explained by the 

 simple yet all-embracing idea of a gradual origin of diseases. It 

 has been clearly demonstrated that many diseases, as one 



