486 



NATURE 



[Oct. 4. 1877 



contact with the secretions of susceptible healthy persons, 

 and the danger is over. With the recovery of that person, 

 that is to say, with restoration in him of a natural secre- 

 tive process, the poison is destroyed ; or should he unfor- 

 tunately die, then with the death of his power to produce 

 further secretion the danger is over, unless from his dead 

 body some of the poison formed before the death be actually 

 carried away to infect. In a word, if my theory be true, 

 we sanitarians have complete mastery over the diffusion 

 of the poisons of all the communicable diseases. We 

 have but to keep steadily in view that the producing and 

 reproducing power is in the affected body, and we can, 

 even with our present knowledge, all but completely limit 

 the action to the propagating power of that body— its 

 power, I mean, of secretion and diffusion of secretion. 



Beyond this, if the theory be true, we must expect, as 

 we reduce the communicable diseases of one generation 

 to reduce the tendency to them in the ne.\t generation, so 

 that in time the heredity to particular spreading disease 

 shall be thoroughly wiped out. 



The theory suggests a profitable line of research on the 

 subject of the production and reproduction of some of the 

 poisons by the Inferior animals and their transmission in 

 that course to man. It brings all the inferior animals, in 

 respect to their health and comfort, under our especial 

 human care, not only for their sakes, but for our own 

 self-preservation.' 



Finally, the theory suggests to those v/ho are engaged 

 in treating diseases of a communicable kind the best 

 means of arresting the progress of a communicable 

 disease even when the phenomena of it have been 

 developed in an individual. It leads us physicians to 

 take a precise view, in each such case, of the nervous and 

 glandular processes that are out of the natural order of 

 work ; it suggests to us to seek for remedies amongst 

 chemical agents which affect special secretions ; and it 

 shows us how to place the sick under such conditions 

 that the secondary absorption of their own poisonous 

 secretions, — that deep absorption which, according to my 

 experience, is the actual cause of death in the great 

 majority of cases of contagious disease, — may be avoided. 

 In every direction, in fine, in prevention and in cure, the 

 glandular theory of the origin of the communicable 

 diseases opens practical work and hopeful work. 



I have for some time past sought for a favourable 

 opportunity of once more putting forward this theory of 

 the natural origin and cause of the communicable diseases 

 of men and animals. The present is opportune to the 

 fullest degree, and therefore I have seized on it. I am 

 too earnest after search of truth for its own sake, too 

 certain that in science everything false must fall, and every- 

 thing true must remain, to feel any sense of anxiety as to 

 the fate of my simple theory, by the side of the doctrine 

 of a living contagium. If my doctrine be as true as I 

 believe it to be, it will live, whatever force be arrayed 

 against it. If it be not true, I would be of the first to 

 welcome its end, and to hail the ascendency of what is 

 absolutely provable and certain on the momentous 

 questions that have occupied our attention. 



Meantime, I know I could not do a better thing for my 

 own views than submit them once more to the public eye 

 through the audience which has now so attentively 

 listened to the argument. 



NOTES 



There has been a great deal of talk during the last few ilays, 

 by prominent public men, on the advantages of some equivalent 

 for university education for all the' people, an education, too, in 

 which science would be allotted a just place. Last week a 

 Nottingham, the Earl of Carnarvon and Mr.' Gladstone said much 

 that was at least true on the advantages of an institution such as 

 that newly founded at Nottingham, and each from his own 

 standpoint lauded the advantages of wide culture for all classes. 



Both Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Forster on Tuesday at Bradford 

 seemed distinctly to approve of the movement for creating 

 Owens College a University, and tlie only difficulty now seems to 

 be the question of power to grant degrees. But surely those who 

 are so eager on the latter point forget to distinguish between the 

 shadow and the substance ; the question of degrees will no doubt 

 settle itself after the University has been established. Still we 

 hardly sympathise with the trade-mark view of degrees propounded 

 by Dr. Appleton in the Times. Bass's or Allsopp's label is imitated 

 because their ales have a high and no doubt well-deserved reputa- 

 tion. But there were good ales before the names of either of the 

 Burton brewers were heard of ; there is the fine old Oxford ale, 

 for instance, which, to judge by the public taste, has been improved 

 upon by its new Burton rivals. Mr. Forster, however, we must say, 

 seemed to think Oxford deserving of a word of praise forits present 

 activity. Mr. Forster's address at Bradford was no mere essay on 

 the beauty of culture, but the weighty utterance of a " practical " 

 man who is foiced to confess that he daily feels the immense 

 disadvantage of having had no early training in science. He 

 produced liimself, in fact, as a practical comment on .Sir John 

 Lubbock's previous advocacy of the introduction of science into 

 elemental y schools. "His ignorance of science," he said, "his 

 want of having been taught elementary laws of science when 

 a boy, he felt every hour of his life, and it was too late now to 

 learn. Science, if learnt at all, must be learnt in boyhood, and 

 it was really disgraceful that in this civilised country, in this intel- 

 lectual age, any one should be brought up in ignorance of the 

 laws of nature, upon the breaking or keeping of which depended 

 our happiness, our lives, and almost everything that relates to us. 

 What a loss of pleasure, and what a different world the outside 

 world of nature would be to him, if he could look around and 

 understand the meaning of the various forces which were at work ; 

 and there was no doubt that a boy, even at an elementary school, 

 if he learnt the elements there and went on afterwards, would get 

 that kind of knowledge of the laws of science that it would 

 become easy to him. There was a great talk about the dead 

 languages. He was not going to say anything against them. 

 Latin was almost a necessity to a man of culture, and Greek was 

 of use ; but why should nature, whichspoke to us in so many 

 ways, be a dead language to us ? And therefore, if it came to this 

 question — Whether we were to have classes on special subjects 

 in elementary schools, classes for grammar, predicates, and a great 

 many long words which he hoped nobody would examine him in, 

 or for science — he certainly should go in favour of science." 

 These are weighty words coming from a man of Mr. Forster's 

 experience and "common sense," and indeed make us hope 

 that things are progressing, and that we shall not now have long 

 to wait before science is introduced not only into colleges, but 

 into schools of all grades. Mr. Forster concluded by admitting 

 that the German vi'orkers were superior to ours in tlie fact that 

 they added to practical training scientific knowledge, and that 

 he saw no reason why in secondary and even university educa- 

 tion voluntary efforts should not be seconded by State aid. 



M. YvoN ViLLARCEAU has been appointed "Administrateur 

 Provisoire" of the Paris Observatory by an order of the Minister 

 for Public Instruction, dated Saturday last. M. Villarceau held 

 a similar office after the death of Delaunay, before the reappoint- 

 ment of Leverrier. Nothing has been said yet as to the appoint- 

 ment of a successor. 



At the Guy's Hospital conversazione, on Monday evening, a 

 new government filter, invented by Major Crease, was shown, 

 which reduced strong tea and infusions of logwood to clear 

 tasteless water. The nature of the filtering material is not made 

 known. 



The white whale, which was brought from America and 

 placed in a tank (50 feet by 25) of fresh water in Westminster 



