STUDIES ON FERMENTATION. 41 



fluid, and so on, can possibly secrete the germs of microscopic 

 organisms. There would be excellent opportunities for these 

 germs to propagate themselves if they actually did exist in the 

 liquids appertaining to the animal economy. Life in all pro- 

 bability would become impossible in the presence of such guests. 

 A proof of this is to be found in the multitude of diseases which 

 many of the greatest minds of modern times attribute to parasitic 

 developments of this nature. Medical men of high authority 

 agree in thinking that the questions of contagion and infection 

 will find solutions from the obscurity in which the}^ are now 

 involved in a careful study of ferments, and that hygieuists and 

 physicians should labour to secure by every possible means the 

 destruction of the germs of ferments, and should strive to check 

 their development, and prevent the evils which they cause when 

 developed. Great progress has already been made in this 

 direction, and we deem it a signal honour that our researches 

 on the subject have been considered, even by those by whom 

 this progress has been accomplished, as the source from which 

 they derived their first inspirations. We shall, doubtless, be 

 excused by our readers if we recall this fact in relating certain 

 historical details which are especially necessary in order that 

 they may comprehend the principles that we are endeavouring 

 to explain in these " studies." 



It is a matter of regret to us, however, that the facts which 

 we have established should have been accredited with any 

 importance beyond that which is their due. The exaggeration 

 of novel ideas invariably leads to a reaction, which, again, 

 overshooting the mark, brings into disrepute even those points 

 in which such ideas are perfectly j ust, or, at all events, worthy 

 of serious consideration. There are certain symptoms of such 

 a reaction in the case of our theories : they are evident in the 

 tendency of unreflecting minds to give a total denial to the 

 fact that certain diseases may be derived from certain ferments 

 — organized and living ferments — of the nature of those which 

 have been discovered in the course of the last twenty years. 

 We should be guided by facts, whichever side of the question 



