THE GERM THEORY 



AND ITS APPLICATIONS TO 



MEDICINE AND SURGERY 1 



THE Sciences gain by mutual support. When, as the 

 result of my first communications on the fermenta- 

 tions in 1857-1858, it appeared that the ferments, 

 properly so-called, are living beings, that the germs of 

 microscopic organisms abound in the surface of all ob- 

 jects, in the air and in water; that the theory of spontaneous 

 generation is chimerical; that wines, beer, vinegar, the 

 blood, urine and all the fluids of the body undergo none 

 of their usual changes in pure air, both Medicine and 

 Surgery received fresh stimulation. A French physician, 

 Dr. Davaine, was fortunate in making the first application 

 of these principles to Medicine, in 1863. 



Our researches of last year, left the etiology of the putrid 

 disease, or septicemia, in a much less advanced condition 

 than that of anthrax. We had demonstrated the probability 

 that septicemia depends upon the presence and growth of 

 a microscopic body, but the absolute proof of this important 

 conclusion was not reached. To demonstrate experimentally 

 that a microscopic organism actually is the cause of a dis- 

 ease and the agent of contagion, I know no other way, in 

 ihe present state of Science, than to subject the microbe 

 (the new and happy term introduced by M. Sedillot) to the 

 method of cultivation out of the body. It may be noted 

 that in twelve successive cultures, each one of only ten 

 cubic centimeters volume, the original drop will be diluted 

 as if placed in a volume of fluid equal to the total volume 



1 Read before the French Academy of Sciences, April 29th, 1878. Pub- 

 lished in Comptes Rendus dt I' Academic des Sciences t Ixxxvi., pp. 1 037-4 > 



