136 



THE AMERICAN MONTHLY 



[Jiiiy, 



sion, to determine, if possible, the 

 nature of the yellow fever poison. 



The work of the Commission has 

 been divided among the members, 

 and Dr. Sternberg is working in 

 accordance with the suggestions in 

 the following paragraph, taken from 

 the instruction to the Commission : 



" But in addition to these, the 

 National Board desires that the 

 Commission shall consider certain 

 problems relating to this disease ; 

 problems which may be entirely 

 insoluble, but which nevertheless 

 are of such importance that an 

 effort should be made to decide 

 whether the National Board of 

 Health will be justified in under- 

 taking the labor and expense which 

 will probably be required to obtain 

 anything like a complete solution 

 of them, if such solution is at all 

 possible. These jprohlems relate to 

 the nature and natural histoify of 

 tJie cause of yellow fever P 



The wording of the instructions 

 indicates that the National Board 

 of Health, is very doubtful about 

 the possibility of discovering the 

 genus of yellow fever. Microsco- 

 pical investigations like those which 

 i)r. Sternberg has undertaken are 

 of the most delicate, and withal 

 unsatisfactory, nature. Delicate, 

 because the utmost excellence in 

 objectives must be supplemented 

 by special and long-continued train- 

 ing of the observer ; unsatisfactory 

 because the organized germs whicn 

 produce disease if such there be, 

 cannot be isolated from hundreds 

 of others which are collected with 

 them. We may go further than 

 this, and say that even if Dr. Stern- 

 berg fails to discover any connec- 

 tion between the organisms which 

 he finds in the air of infected dis- 

 tricts, the question of the germinal 

 origin of the disease will be still an 

 open one. This is true, because we 

 know that there are organized, liv- 



ing particles of matter so minute 

 to be invisible with the best ml* 

 croscope, and we can hardly hope 

 to be able to cultivate and identify 

 the organisms which develope from 

 such spores. 



There can be no question about 

 the existence of such minute, invi- 

 sible spores, for they have been 

 observed as an unresolvable cloud 

 by Mr. Dallinger, during his ad- 

 mirable work on septic organisms. 

 It will be difficult, therefore, if not 

 impossible, to prove or to disprove 

 the germ theory of disease by 

 examinations of the atmospheric 

 spores. Nevertheless, we are much 

 pleased to know that our National 

 Board deems it worth while to as- 

 sign an able investigator to study 

 systematically, the microscopic par- 

 ticles in the air from day to day, 

 during seasons of health and also 

 when desease prevails. Certainly 

 such researches will prove to be of 

 great value to science, if not to me- 

 dical science. 



Although Dr. Sternberg's re- 

 searches have not been continued 

 long enough to lead to many defi- 

 nite results, he already feels justified 

 in announcing that " there is no 

 gross and conspicuous germ or or- 

 ganism, either in the hlood of yellow 

 fever patients or in tlie air of in- 

 fected localities, which by its pecu- 

 liar appearance or abundant presence 

 might arrest the attention of a mi- 

 croscopist and cause suspicion that 

 it is the veritable germ of yellow 

 fever." 



Klebs and Tomason have lately 

 announced that they have discovered 

 what they believe to be the germ of 

 malarial fever, in the vicinity of 

 Rome. We fully concur with the 

 opinion of Dr. Sternberg that the 

 observations of those gentlemen 

 " require verification," and it is a 

 satisfaction to know that he has 

 been instructed to repeat their ex- 



