436 BACTERIOLOGY. 



The ways in which disease is generally dis- 

 seminated speak also against bacteriological 

 excesses. In India mere removal of the place 

 of encampment has always proved an impor- 

 tant means of protection against cholera and 

 such removal does not threaten the new neigh- 

 borhood with the disease. The German mili- 

 tary hospital at Metz has acted upon the sur- 

 rounding conditions of health only in a favor- 

 able way and has not conduced to the spread 

 of typhoid fever and diarrhoea. 



In diseases, too, of the character of scarlet 

 fever we have, to the delight of the martinets, 

 done too much in the last decade in the matter 

 of isolation. In all these matters, after giving 

 bacteriology its due, greater value must again 

 be attached to medical experience. The ad- 

 vance in the science itself has frequently led to 

 a change of view from the extreme claims of 

 Koch and has confirmed the wisdom of the 

 moderate conceptions of the English. In 

 most cases bacteriology has led us to the same 

 conclusions as epidemiolog}^ A method of 

 combating disease which does not adjust itself 

 to our "modern social conditions both industrial 

 and social is worthless from the beginning. 

 The colossal injury to trade and commerce 

 wrought by cholera in 1892 abundantly showed 

 that the way of fighting disease then employed 



