12 REPORT 1881. 



conditions. This discovery has enabled many operations to be performed 

 which would previously have been almost hopeless. 



The same idea seems destined to prove as useful in Medicine as 

 in Surgery. There is great reason to suppose that many diseases, 

 especially those of a zymotic character, have their origin in the germs 

 of special organisms. We know that fevers run a certain definite course. 

 The parasitic organisms are at first few, but gradually multiply at the 

 expense of the patient, and then die out again. Indeed, it seems to 

 be thoroughly established that mauy diseases are due to the exces- 

 sive multiplication of microscopic organisms, and wc are not without hope 

 that means will be discovered by which, without injury to the patient, 

 these terrible, though minute, enemies may be destroyed, and the disease 

 thus stayed. Bacillus anthracis, for instance, is now known to be the 

 cause of splenic fever, which is so fatal to cattle, and is also communi- 

 cable to man. At Bradford, for instance, it is only too well known as 

 the woolsorter's disease. If, however, matter containing the Bacillus 

 be treated in a particular manner, and cattle be then inoculated with it, 

 they are found to acquire an immunity from the fever. The interesting 

 researches of Burdon Sanderson, Greenfield, Koch, Pasteur, Toussaint, 

 and others, seem to justify the hope that we may be able to modify 

 these and other germs, and then by appropriate inoculation to protect 

 ourselves against fever and other acute diseases. 



Terrier's researches, in continuation of those of Fritsch and Hitzigr, 

 have enabled us to localize the function of various parts of the brain. His 

 results have not only proved of great importance in surgery, and in many 

 cases led to successful operations, by pointing out the exact source of the 

 mischief, but an exact knowledge of the brain is also of the greatest 

 importance in the ti-eatment of nervous diseases. Echeverria has col- 

 lected 165 cases of traumatic epilepsy, of which 64 per cetit. were cured 

 by removing a portion of the skull, the site for the operation and the exact 

 nature of the lesion being indicated by cerebral localization. 



The history of Antesthetics is a most remarkable illustration how long 

 we may be on the very verge of a most important discovery. Ether, 

 which, as we all know, produces perfect insensibility to pain, was 

 discovered as long ago as 1540. The ancesthetic property of nitrous 

 oxide, now so extensively used, was observed in 1800 by Sir H. Davy, 

 who actually experimented on himself, and had one of his teeth painlessly 

 extracted when under its influence. He even suggests that ' as nitrous 

 oxide gas seems capable of destroying pain, it could probably be used 

 with advantage in surgical operations.' Nay, this property of nitrous 

 oxide was habitually explained and illustrated in the chemical lectures 

 given in hospitals, and yet for fifty years the gas was never used in 

 actual operations. No one did more to promote the use of anoesthetics 

 than Sir James Y. Simpson, who introduced chloroform, a substance 

 which was discovered in 1831, and which for a while almost entirely 



