68 BIOLOGY AND THE STATE II 



to ward off by similar means the access of such 

 organisms to the wounded surface. The amount of 

 death, not to speak of the suffering short of death, 

 which the knowledge of Bacteria gained by the micro- 

 scope has thus averted is incalculable. 



Yet further, the discoveries of Ehrenberg, Schwann, 

 and Pasteur are bearing fruit of a similar kind in other 

 directions. It seems in the highest degree probable 

 that the terrible scourge known as tubercular consump- 

 tion or phthisis is due to a parasitic Bacterium (Bacillus), 

 discovered two years since by Koch of Berlin, as the 

 immediate result of investigations which he was com- 

 missioned to carry on at the public expense, in the 

 specially erected Laboratory of Public Health, by the 

 German Imperial Government. The diseases known 

 as erysipelas and glanders or farcy have similarly, 

 within the past few months in German State- supported 

 laboratories, been shown to be due to the attacks of 

 special kinds of Bacteria. At present this knowledge 

 has not led to a successful method of combating those 

 diseases, but we can hardly doubt that it will ultimately 

 do so. We are warranted in this belief by the fact 

 that the disease known as " splenic fever " in cattle and 

 " malignant pustule " or anthrax in man has likewise 

 been shown to be due to the action of a special kind 

 of Bacterium, and that this knowledge has, in the 

 hands of MM. Toussaint and Pasteur, led to a treatment 

 in relation to this disease similar to that of vaccination 

 in relation to small-pox. By cultivation a modified 

 growth of the anthrax parasite is obtained, which is 

 then used in order to inoculate cattle and sheep with 



