1891.] MIOKOSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 205 



The Oerm Theory. 



By E. H. GRIFFITH, 



FAIRPORT, N .Y. 



The germ theory of disease is generahy supposed to be new, and I 

 do not now recall any one who knows it was advocated prior to 35 

 years ago. About a year ago, however, while visiting an old Curiosity 

 Shop at the foot of Pike's Peak, Colorado, I found a book published in 

 1730, at " The Bishop's Head. St. Paul's Church-Yard, London, 

 Eng.," written by Benjamin Marten, M. D., and entitled " A New 

 Theory of Consumption." In this volume I discovered many things 

 which may be of interest to the readers of the yotirtial^ therefore I 

 venture to give a few extracts from its pages. Dr. Marten writes : 



"■ But what this peculiar, primary, or effective cause of consumption 

 really is, doubtless will be very difficult, if possible, to ascertain ; how- 

 ever, modern discoveries and microscopical observation may assist us 

 in our enquiries, give us some light into it, and warrant the following 

 attempt : 



" The original and essential cause of them which some content them- 

 selves to call a viscous disposition of the juices, others a salt acrimony, 

 others a strange ferment, others a malignant humour — all of which 

 seem to me dark and unintelligible — may possibly be some certain spe- 

 cies of animalculce or wonderfully minute living creatures, that by their 

 peculiar shape, or disagi'eeable parts, are inimicable to our nature, but 

 however, capable of subsisting in our juices and vessels, and which 

 being drove to the lungs by the circulation of the blood, or else gener- 

 ated there by their proper ova with which the juice may abound, or 

 which possibly being carried about by the air may be immediately con- 

 veyed to the lungs by that we draw in, and there being deposited as in 

 a proper nidus or neft, and being produced into life, coming to perfec- 

 tion, or increasing in bigness, may b}^ their spontaneous motion and 

 injurious parts, stimulating and perhaps wounding or gnawing the ten- 

 der vessels of the lungs, cause all the disorders that have been men- 

 tioned. * « * 



" This opinion of animalcules or exceeding minute animals that are 

 inimical to our nature, being the cause of consumption of the lungs, 

 will doubtless seem strange to abundance of persons, and especially 

 to those who have no idea of any living creatures besides what are 

 conspicuous to the bare eye." 



After giving several pages descriptive of animalculce and of the in- 

 vestigations of others, Dr. Marten continues : 



" And DeAudry, a famous physician of Paris, has wrote an admira- 

 ble treatise of insects in human bodies, approved by the late King's 

 physician and the whole faculty of Paris, wherein, speaking of animal- 

 cuIeb, or very minute living creatures, he says : ' We must admit, then, 

 that there are animals a thousand times less than a grain of dust, which 

 we can scarcely see. These animals have a motion like other animals ; 

 they have muscles to move, tendons, and an infinite number of fibers in 

 each muscle, and, in fine, blood and animal spirits very subtle and fine 

 to fill or move those muscles, without which they could not transport 

 their bodies into different places. The small seeds of insects do not 



