44 STUDIES ON FERMENTATION. 



were the first to study in your Memoir on lactic fermentation. 

 I do not know if you ever see the records of British surgery. 

 If you have perused them you may have observed from time to 

 time notices of the antiseptic system which I have been 

 endeavouring for the last nine years to bring to perfection. 

 Permit me to take this opportunity of offering you my most 

 hearty thanks for having demonstrated by your brilliant 

 researches the truth of the theory of putrefactive germs, and 

 for having afforded me in this manner the sole means of per- 

 fecting the antiseptic system, 



" Should you ever come to Edinburgh I am sure that you 

 will be truly gratified to see in our hospital the extent to which 

 the human race has profited by your work. I need hardly add, 

 that I should have great satisfaction in showing you how 

 greatly surgery is indebted to you. 



" Excuse the freedom which I have taken in addressing you, 

 on the grounds of our common love for science, and believe in 

 the profound esteem of yours, very sincerely, Joseph Lister." 



The wad dressing of Dr. Alphonse Guerin, surgeon at the 

 Hotel-Dieu, Paris, which has already rendered great assistance 

 to surgery, and has been the subject of a very favourable report 

 at the Academy of Sciences in Paris, was invented by its author 

 in consequence of certain reflections suggested to him by the 

 perusal of our researches. The commission which framed the 

 report made, through M. Gosselin, some wise reservations in the 

 case of certain theoretical ideas which M. Guerin had not 

 sufficiently proved by experiment. We have no doubt, how- 

 ever, that when the matter is thoroughly examined, facts will 

 confirm the truth of the wide views entertained by the surgeon 

 of the Hotel-Dieu. 



Dr. Declat has founded quite a new system for the treatment 

 of infectious diseases, which is based upon the use of one of the 

 best known antiseptics, phenic acid. His theory, which he 

 affirms was suggested to him by our studies on fermentations, 

 is, that the diseases which transmit themselves are, each of 



