DISCOVERY 



279 



Handbook of Physiology. By W. D. Halliburton, 



m'.D., etc. (John Murray, 21s.) 

 The Vault of Heaven. By Sir Richard Gregory. 



(Methuen, 6s.) • 



A .Manual of Histology. By ^^ H. Mottram. (Methuen 



& Co., Ltd., 14.';.) 

 .:i Manual of Practical Dactylography. By Dr. Henry 



Faulds. (The Police Review Publishing Co., 2S.) 

 The Cause of the Rotation of the Earth, Planets, etc. By 



S.\MUEL Shields. (Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd.) 

 Science and Civilization. Essays arranged and edited 



by F. S. Marvin. (Humphrey Milford, O.Kford 



L'niversity Press, 125. 6d.) 

 The New Natural History. The Twenty-fifth Robert 



Boyle Lecture. By Prof. J. Arthur Thomson, 



M.A., LL.D., LTniversity of Aberdeen. (Humphrey 



Milford, Oxford University Press. 15.) 



Correspondence 



GERM TOXINS AND ANTITOXINS 



To the Editor of Discovery 



Sir, 



Perhaps you will permit me to call attention to a 

 rather remarkable statement in the article From the 

 Vague to the Concrete, by Professor D. Fraser Harris, in 

 your July number. 



On page 187 Professor Harris writes : "It was soon 

 isolated in pure cultures [the Bacillus pesiis], 

 grown in artificial media, and its toxins and antitoxins 

 became chemical entities." 



Such a statement may easily mislead the uninformed 

 into thinking that germ toxins and antitoxins (or some 

 of them) have been isolated, that they can be weighed 

 and measured like other " chemical entities." This is 

 certainly not the case. If they exist at all they must be 

 definite chemical bodies, yet they cannot be isolated. 

 Their formulae are not known, they respond to no chemical 

 reagent, and no system of chemical analysis can dem.on- 

 strate their presence, either in the living body or in 

 culture. They are quite as imaginary and unreal as 

 phlogiston, and like phlogiston there is not the slightest 

 probability of their e^'er passing from the vague to the 

 concrete. 



A little farther on Professor Harris declares that " in 

 1892 the bacteriologist Pfeiffer isolated the organism 

 of influenza." How does this square with the fact that 

 the organism of influenza is still being sought for ? 



Altogether the germ-theory of disease seems to be 

 built on wild assumption. Hypothesis is piled on hypo- 

 thesis in the effort to make theory fit the facts, just as 

 epicycle was added to epicycle in the effort to make the 

 geocentric theory fit the facts of astronomy. Germs are 

 just as likely to be a consequence as a cause of disease, 

 and quite certainly their toxins and antitoxins have 

 never been proved to exist. 



Trusting you will afford space for this letter. 



Yours, etc., 

 10 Fauconberg Road, J. Campbell. 



London, W.4. 



[Our correspondent, in entertaining a philosophical 

 doubt as to the truth of the germ-theory of the origin of 

 certain diseases, has taken up a position which we find a 

 little difficult to understand. There is not space here 

 for a full discussion of the great mass of knowledge on 

 the subject, which is fully discussed in such admirable 

 textbooks as Muir and Ritchie's Bacteriology. The three 

 facts — that a certain bacterium is found in the organs of 

 an animal suffering from a definite disease, that this 

 bacterium can be grown on an artificial medium, and that 

 on injection into a healthy animal the disease is again 

 recognised, together with the fact that this animal develops 

 certain recognisable peculiarities in its blood which are 

 associated with immunity from further attacks in many- 

 cases — provide a basis for the theory difficult indeed to 

 undermine. 



It is true that the chemical analysis of the poisonous 

 substances, known as toxins, which a bacterium manu- 

 factures, has so far proved impossible. But these toxins 

 behave exactly like other well-recognised poisons such as 

 " ricin." It is only very recently that many of the com- 

 plicated substances which are connected with the pro- 

 cesses of life have been analysed and expressed in chemical 

 formulae ; " Biochemistry " is in its infancy. A poison, 

 however, is none the less a chemical entity because, 

 we are ignorant of the arrangement of its elements ; we 

 know well enough what those elements are. So far 

 from agreeing that " there is not the slightest probability 

 of their ever passing from the vague to the concrete," 

 we believe that such a happy consummation becomes 

 each day more probable, and that, when we know their 

 cheinical formulas and can manufacture antitoxins at 

 our will, a very great advance will have been made in 

 the treatment of disease. 



As regards the organism of influenza, tliere is, admit- 

 tedly, some discussion. This is not imnatural when we 

 remember that the disease itself is far from easy to 

 recognise, save in epidemics when great numbers of 

 individuals present the same symptoms. Some recent 

 work has gone to show that a " filter-passer " is associated 

 with influenza ; but at present Pfeiffer's bacteriuna has 

 not definitely been ousted from its position of dis- 

 honour. — Ed.] 



DEATH-IMPULSES 



To the Editor of Discovery 



Sir, 



As a result of holidays I have obtained my July 

 number of Discovery over a month late, so I have only 

 just read Mr. Hampton's review of Professor Freud's 

 Beyond the Pleasure Principle — a review with which I 

 disagree so strongly that I would be grateful for space 

 in your correspondence columns to put forward another 

 view of this book 



The argument of tlie book is simple. A man dreams 

 fearful dreams in which he goes over an unpleasant past 

 experience, a child sometimes throws away his toys. 

 These are the only two empirical facts on which this 

 theory of death-instincts is based. The theory is not 



