294 MICROBES, FERMENTS, AND MOULDS. 



certainly lives and is developed in the toxic juice of 

 the seeds of Abrus precatorius, but which, as Klein 

 has shown, has no influence on the artificial conjunc- 

 tivitis produced by the aid of this liquid. 



This theory of ptomaines without microbes is, 

 however, inconsistent with an impartial study of facts. 

 It is true that a suitable filtration will separate the 

 ptomaine from its microbe ; but the converse, as in 

 the case of the jequirity liquid, is impossible. When 

 this microbe is separated from the original liquid, 

 and transferred to the infusions of successive cultures, 

 so as to purify it from every foreign element, it 

 continues to produce its characteristic ptomaine, which 

 is manufactured completely at the expense of the 

 culture liquid, as Pouchet's recent experiments on the 

 ptomaine of cholera have shown. There is no ptomaine 

 without its special microbe, any more than there is 

 ergotine without Claviceps purpurea, or vinegar 

 without Mycoderma aceti. 



Pasteur's Microbian Theory is the only one which 

 explains all Facts. The microbian theory is the only 

 one which is not obliged to have recourse to the vague 

 expressions with which medicine was formerly content 

 to explain the contagion of diseases, and which still 

 satisfies Jousset de Bellesme, when he speaks of the 

 wholly obscure conditions which accompany the pro- 

 duction of these diseases. All the expressions of 

 miasmata, virus, effluvia, etc., which were in use twenty 

 years ago to designate that unknown agency which 



