APPENDIX E. cli 



Some boiled fluids are quite incapable by themselves of 

 initiating a fermentative process; but this tells no more 

 against the positive abilities of other fluids, than the fact 

 that certain diseases are unable to spring up amongst a 

 particular community, tells against the circumstance that they 

 do so arise amongst other communities where a number of 

 unhygienic surroundings, previously absent, are also opera- 

 tive in producing the result \ 



Amongst the ' exciting ' causes of disease, there must be 

 many which are to us at present utterly obscure. More 

 especially is this the case with epidemic diseases. There are, 

 undoubtedly, 'epidemic influences' concerning which we 

 know scarcely anything, but whose existence is only too 

 surely attested by the history of the great epidemic and epi- 

 zootic affections. As Fleming says, in his ' Animal Plagues,' 



days and nights, and from that point the new disorder spread itself, with 

 the rapidity of lightning, over the neighbouring towns of Camborne, 

 Helston, Truro, Penryn, and Falmouth, as well as over the villages 

 in the vicinity. Whilst thus advancing, it decreased in some measure 

 at the place where it had first appeared, and it confined itself throughout 

 to the Methodist chapel. It was only by the words which have been men- 

 tioned [contagia] that it was excited, and it seized none but people of the 

 lowest education. Those who were attacked betrayed the greatest anguish, 

 and fell into convulsions. . . . According to a moderate computation 

 4,000 people were within a very short time affected with this convulsive 

 malady.' The various signs and symptoms of the malady are then 

 described. 



1 There is, however, a great tendency to draw such conclusions ; just 

 as there is a tendency with others to conclude that Bacteria do not arise 

 de novo, because there is no evidence of such an occurrence when dealing 

 with Pasteur's solution or a few other fluids, different from those m 

 which the process is stated to occur. Let any person, for instance, 

 repeat Dr. Sanderson's thirteenth experiment (' Thirteenth Report of the 

 Medical Officer of the Privy Council ') with a strong infusion of hay or 

 turnip, rather than with Pasteur's fluid, and then such results will occur 

 that, from Dr. Sanderson's data, he will have no option but to admit 

 that Bacteria do arise de novo. It is surprising that such an experiment 

 was not tried in the face of all that has been said concerning the produc- 

 tivity of such fluids. The real laws by which contagion is regulated can 

 never be adequately understood, unless one knows whether the contagia 

 with which one is concerned can, under any circumstances, arise de novo. 

 This seems to me to be the point which should be first ascertained. 



