GERMS. 12 



they are more dangerous than the dead tissues which 

 they reduce. Is this true? No, for if nature has 

 designed germs the medium by which dead tissues shall 

 be removed, and at the same time rendered the germs 

 more dangerous than the dead tissue, then nature has 

 made a fatal mistake. 



All admit nature makes no mistakes. 



If germs are not the cause of disease, what is? 

 What is the cause of epidemics, contagion, etc.? 

 How does disease spread? Undoubtedly some epidem- 

 ics are caused by atmospheric changes. It cannot be 

 otherwise, because its appearance is so sudden and wide- 

 spread. It occurs almost simultaneously in different 

 parts of the country. It has been observed on land 

 and ship at the same time. This applies especially to 

 influenza or grip, "hay fever," etc., yet there are dis- 

 eases that cannot be accounted for in this way. Ke- 

 garding these, one of the world's greatest physiologists, 

 the late W. B. Carpenter, is quoted as saying: "What 

 is it that determines the infective nature of disease 

 germs ?" This something appears to be supplied by 

 overcrowding the patients thus affected. Overcrowd- 

 ing means deficient air-supply, and deficient air-supply 

 means deficient oxygenation of the blood, producing 

 an accumulation in the circulating current of those 

 waste products which are normally eliminated as fast 

 as they are produced. Just thirty years ago I showed 

 that all the known predisposing causes of epidemic 

 diseases might be generalized under one expression, 

 viz., the accumulation of decomposing nitrogenous mat- 

 ter in the blood, either from without as foul air, impure 



