222 BACTERIOLOGY. 



This notion that pestilences are punishments 

 for sins, and that they can be combated by 

 sacrifices, prayers, and pilgrimages, survives 

 to-day in the midst of civilized Europe, an exam- 

 ple of the deep-rooted proclivity in untrained 

 minds towards a search after the animate, to- 

 wards ontological speculation. The conveni- 

 ence of this ontological conception has given to 

 the bacteria, as if in pure mockery of all scien- 

 tific thought, an opportunity to celebrate their 

 resurrection as the true disease-entities. Now, 

 indeed, every sewing-girl knows that these 

 good-for-nothing bacteria are the cause of 

 " fevers." Given the specific germ and the 

 supposition is that we know everything need- 

 ful ; methods of fighting the disease, of disin- 

 fection and of healing are mere unimportant 

 details. We cannot enough scorn those older 

 physicians who knew nothing about bacteria, 

 but who could not bring it into harmony with 

 their better philosophic schooling that these 

 things should be suddenly presented to' them 

 in pure cultures and in beautifully colored mi- 

 croscopic preparations, as the cause of disease. 

 But in truth a sound kernel lay in their crit- 

 icism. It was in a kindred spirit that Liebig 

 ridiculed Pasteur, remarking a propos of Pas- 

 teur's statement that the yeasts were the cause 

 of alcoholic fermentation, that one could not see 



