1008 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 417. 



French surgeons were slow to adopt new 

 ideas. 



In England Lister was more successful. 

 Fired by Pasteur's discoveries regarding 

 fermentation and putrefaction, he con- 

 ceived the idea of using carbolic acid in 

 the vicinity of the wound while an opera- 

 tion was being performed, for the purpose 

 of destroj'ing whatever germs might be 

 floating in the air or adherent to the sur- 

 faces. This was employed successfully, 

 and at once the mortality of surgical opera- 

 tions was greatly diminished. This was 

 the beginning of the aseptic surgery of the 

 present day, and, in the light of what it 

 has accomplished, Lister's achievement 

 shines with brilliance. . Carbolic acid was 

 soon discontinued, owing to more efficient 

 aseptic agents and methods of absolute 

 cleanliness, but the essence of the modern 

 surgical method is the same as at first, 

 namely, to prevent the living germs from 

 entering the wound. Septicemia and 

 pyemia are no longer to be dreaded, the 

 successful outcome of surgical procedure 

 is practically assured, and operations that 

 were undreamed of twenty-five years ago 

 are now daily occurrences in the hospitals 

 of the world. The most remarkable are 

 those that come under the general head 

 of laparotomy, which requires the opening 

 of the abdominal cavity, and those per- 

 formed on the brain. It may be said that 

 the greatest development of scientific or 

 aseptic surgery has occurred in America. 

 Here the typical American traits of in- 

 genuity, independence and courage have 

 borne good fruit. 



Disease (Ten?is.— Pasteur's work was 

 epoch-making. Apart from its revolution- 

 izing the methods of practical surgery, it 

 has completely changed our conception of 

 the nature and the mode of treatment of 

 the whole group of germ or zymotic dis- 

 eases, and has gone far toward solving a 

 host of long-existing and puzzling prob- 



lems of general pathology. The actual 

 discovery of the germs of human diseases 

 and the proofs of their specific morbific 

 properties did not fall within Pasteur's 

 province. Such achievement has been the 

 lot of others, most brilliant among Avhom 

 is undoubtedly Robert Koch. The bacillus 

 of anthrax, or splenic fever, was seen in 

 1838 by a French veterinarian named 

 Delafond, but its part as the causative 

 agent of the disease was first shown by 

 Koch in 1876, this being the first conclusive 

 demonstration of the production of a spe- 

 cific human disease by a specific bacterium. 

 Think how recent was this event, so signi- 

 ficant for the development of a scientific 

 medicine and for the welfare of the human 

 race ! Koch 's demonstration was made 

 but twenfy-six years ago, eleven years after 

 the close of our Civil War. But it was 

 only after repeated subsequent experiments 

 and the piling of proof on proof by Koch, 

 Pasteur and others, that the new idea 

 was generally accepted. Since then dis- 

 covery has followed discovery, and the 

 world watches eagerly for each new an- 

 nouncement. Koch acquired new laurels 

 in 1882 by demonstrating the germ of 

 tuberculosis, and in 1884 that of the terri- 

 fying Asiatic cholera. In 1884, also, 

 Klebs and Loffier found the bacillus of 

 diphtheria, and several investigators that 

 of tetanus. The year 1892 revealed the 

 bacillus of influenza, and 1894 that of 

 bubonic plague. Besides these instances, 

 the part played by specific germs in many 

 other diseases has already become recog- 

 nized. Smallpox," measles, hydrop)liobia 

 and yellow fever still defy the investiga- 

 tors, but no one doubts their germinal 

 nature. 



But scientific medicine is not content 

 with describing species of bacteria and 

 proving their connection with specific dis- 

 eases. It must show what these organisms 

 do within the body, how they cause disease, 



