MY WORK AND BACTERIOLOGY 207 

modern bacteriology.” This was the dictum of the 
reviewer, his @ przovz point of view, though in that 
volume I had said not one single word tending to 
minimise the enormous value of bacteriological 
work. Again, in another important journal the 
reviewer said, “If, on the other hand, Dr Bastian 
be correct and the microbes of definite diseases can 
arise de novo either from harmless organisms or 
from unorganised matter, then practically all current 
ideas on the modes of dealing with epidemic diseases 
must be abandoned, and an unhappy world must 
bow before the malevolent caprices of nature.” 
This, as I shall now attempt to show, is untrue in 
fact, and absolutely contrary to the implications 
naturally following from my facts and doctrines. 
Bacteriologists, almost if not quite universally, 
regard the low organisms with which they are con- 
cerned as capable of arising only from others of like 
kind, and since it has been shown that there is a 
constant relation between many of these organisms 
and definite diseases—that the diseases are, in fact, 
often actually caused by them—the notion has 
gradually become strengthened that such diseases, 
which possess the property of being contagious, can 
no more arise de zovo than the organisms by which 
they are caused. Thus ultra-contagionist views are 
regnant, and the frequent de zovo origin of infectious 
diseases, in which I have always believed, is denied. 
A late distinguished president of the Royal College 
of Physicians, whom we all revere, a short time since 
gave his sanction and adherence to the popular 
1 No italics in original. 
fl 
a 
