1 * 9 ) 243 



flammation. The pus, moreover, which was sweet at 

 first, and showed no trace of animal life, is now fetid, 

 and swarming with active little organisms called vibrios. 

 Prof. Lister, from whose recent lecture this fact is de- 

 rived, contends, with every show of reason, that this 

 rapid putrefaction and this astounding development of 

 animal life are due to the entry of germs into the abscess 

 during the first operation, and their subsequent nurture 

 and development under favorable conditions of food and 

 temperature. The celebrated physiologist and physicist, 

 Helmholtz, is attacked annually by hay-fever. From 

 the 20th of May to the end of June he suffers from a 

 catarrh of the upper air-passages ; and he has found 

 during this period, and at no other, that his nasal secre- 

 tions are peopled by these vibrios. They appear to 

 nestle by preference in the cavities and recesses of the 

 nose, for a strong sneeze is necessary to dislodge them. 

 These statements sound uncomfortable ; but by dis- 

 closing our enemy they enable us to fight him. When 

 he clearly eyes his quarry the eagle's strength is doubled, 

 and his swoop is rendered sure. If the germ theory be 

 proved true, it will give a definiteness to our efforts to 

 stamp out disease which they could not previously pos- 

 sess. And it is only by definite effort under its guid- 

 ance that its truth or falsehood can be established. It 

 is difficult for an outsider like myself to read without 

 sympathetic emotion such papers as those of Dr. Budd, 

 of Bristol, on cholera, scarlet-fever, and small-pox. He 

 is a man of strong imagination, and may occasionally 

 take a flight beyond his facts ; but without this dynamic 

 heat of heart, the stolid inertia of the free-born Briton 

 cannot be overcome. And as long as the heat is em- 

 ployed to warm up the truth without singeing it over- 



