290 MICROBES, FERMENTS, AND MOULDS. 



with the present state of science, and is in no case 

 applicable to virulent and contagious diseases. 



Theory of Charlton Bastian, and the English Fol- 

 lowers of his School. This theory, held by the most 

 ardent opponents of the school of Tyndall and Pasteur, 

 is set forth in the writings of Lewis and Lionel Beale. 

 It scarcely differs from the one we have just stated. 

 Lewis thinks it very evident that the presence of 

 microphyta of the blood is only a secondary pheno- 

 menon ; that the change in the fluids of the body is 

 effected before the slightest trace of their presence can 

 be discovered. This is plainly Robin's theory.* 



Beale is still more absolute and exclusive.! He 

 holds that the solid particles of vaccine are not bacteria 

 nor micrococci, but bioplasts, or formulated elements 

 which have their source in the living substance of the 

 cow, and these bioplasts constitute the effective con- 

 tagion of all virulent diseases. Bioplasts are extremely 

 minute particles of the living substance of the species 

 affected by the disease. The contagion is a bioplasma, 

 and each species of contagious bioplasma manifests its 

 peculiar specific action, and that only. We must 

 leave it to others to admire and paraphrase this scien- 

 tific jargon, which seems intended to take us several 

 ages back. We must, however, observe that Beale's 

 theory is somewhat allied to another, much more 

 serious and complete, of which we have now to speak. 



* Les Microphytes du Sang, 1881. 

 f The Microscope in Medicine, 1882. 



