858 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 805 



central thesis: Quod ex putredine perpetuo 

 corpora quaedam insensibilia in circumsita 

 corpora exspirentur, quw effluvia pestis semi- 

 naria dicuntur' the terminology of whicli im- 

 mediately suggests the excerpts I have given 

 from Fraeastorius. 



Kireher's " Scrutinium pestis," one of the 

 acknowledged landmarks in medical progress, 

 vcas published in Eome in 1658, at least sev- 

 enteen years before Leeuwenhoek's discovery 

 of the infusoria (1675) and twenty-five years 

 before his Royal Society paper on the micro- 

 organisms found on the teeth (September 17, 

 1683) ; so that making every allowance for the 

 skiU and proficiency of seventeenth century 

 opticians in grinding and polishing lenses, 

 the question whether Kireher's lenses were 

 better or worse than Leeuwenhoek's is one of 

 those "improbable problems" that each one 

 can settle according to his personal prefer- 

 ences. No one will deny that Kircher saw 

 some minute organisms under his glass, but 

 my quotation from Puschmann's " Hand- 

 buch " to the effect that this glass was " only 

 a 32-power at best" was, I think, taken from 

 a most authoritative source, Loeffler's " Vor- 

 lesungen," and certainly between this state- 

 ment and Kireher's own romantic assertion 

 that his lenses magnified a thousandfold, there 

 is opportunity for extreme latitude of opinion. 

 If Kireher's microscope still exists, say in the 

 Vatican collection or any other collection left 

 by him, the point might perhaps be settled by 

 having the lenses examined. 



Leeuwenhoek's paper of 1683^ contains what 

 appear to be accurate figurations of chains of 

 bacilli as well as of individual spirilli and 

 bacilli, and I am informed by a competent 

 bacteriologist that it would be perfectly pos- 

 sible to see such chains and clumps with an 

 occasional motile specimen through a glass of 

 the power specified by Dr. Eiley. All honor 

 then to the father of microscopy, who, if he 

 saw bacteria without staining methods, 



-Ibid., 29. 



' A. Leeuwenhoek, " Ontledingen en Ontdek- 

 kingen," Leiden, 1696, 1. Stuk, pp. 12-15; the cut 

 on p. 13 is reproduced by Loeffler and in Jordan's 

 " General Bacteriology," Philadelphia, 1909, p. 18. 



showed himself a genuine laboratory worker, 

 by also drawing them. But neither the nota- 

 tions of Leeuwenhoek, nor the labors of 

 Miiller, Ehrenberg, Cohn and Nageli, can 

 compare with the gigantic strides made by 

 Pasteur, who, as Virchow once passionately 

 declared,* was the first to handle the bacterial 

 theory of infection in " the grand style " (im 

 grossen Styl), and thence to attempt a work- 

 ing theory of immunity and a practicable en- 

 largement of Jenner's scheme of preventive 

 inoculation. It is this that gives Pasteur his 

 fixed and unassailable position as the true 

 founder of bacteriology — at least so far as the 

 history of medical science is concerned. 



In reference to Dr. Henry Skinner's pote 

 on the mosquito theory of yellow fever," I 

 have been reminded by Professor Osier that 

 there are authorities recently cited by Boyce° 

 " that quite put Finley in the shade." Of 

 these the claims of Dr. J. C. ISTott (1848) have 

 not been disputed, while a paper by Louis- 

 Daniel-Beauperthuy, published in the " Ga- 

 eeta Oficial de Cumana " (1853) is probably 

 the best early contribution extant on the mos- 

 quito theory, containing a remarkably clear 

 perception of the hsemolysis produced by tox- 

 ins and venoms, and a clever note on the 

 characteristic striped legs of the yellow fever 

 mosquito (Stegomyia calopus}J 



That the deductive theorists of one genera- 

 tion should rest upon the shoulders of their 

 predecessors seems natural if we consider that 

 only inductive demonstrations, like those of 

 Harvey, Pasteur, Lister, Eeed and Carroll, con- 

 stitute real tangible proofs. The kinetic theory 



* " Wenn man jetzt auch dariiber streitet, wer 

 die ersten waren, welehe diesen oder jenen Ge- 

 danken entwiekelt haben — das kahn Niemand im 

 Abrede stellen: Pasteur ist es gewesen, der im 

 grossen Styl die Frage von der Uebertragung der 

 Krankheiten durch bestimmte infeetiiise Korper 

 in die Hand genommeu hat, und der darauf hin 

 die Immunitatslehre zu begriinden gesucht hat." 

 Rudolf Virchow, Verhandl. d. Berlin, med. 

 Gesellsch., 1895, XXVI., 161. 



' Science, April 22. 



° Sir E,. W. Boyee, " Mosquitoe or Man?" Lon- 

 don, 1909, 23-28. 



'Ibid., 24-25. 



