SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1070 



the wonderful and brilliant investigations 

 of Robert Koch and his immediate pupils, 

 especially the discovery of the responsible 

 parasites of anthrax, tuberculosis, Asiatic 

 cholera and typhoid fever, the Munich 

 school of hygiene received a staggering 

 blow. Here were the hypothetical etiolog- 

 ical agents of disease capable of demonstra- 

 tion under the microscope and of cultiva- 

 tion in the laboratory. Why waste one's 

 time indeed in arguing about an unknown 

 factor when this factor had been discovered 

 and identified and the facts relating to it 

 could be accurately studied? This was 

 especially the case with Asiatic cholera 

 where methods had been devised for the 

 accurate bacteriological examination of sus- 

 pected eases by the use of which an almost 

 absolute diagnosis could be made in forty- 

 eight hours and the infected individuals 

 quarantined, the simplest possible method 

 of preventing the introduction of this fear- 

 ful scourge into any community. But the 

 Munich school of hygiene died hard and in 

 the long and somewhat bitter controversy 

 between the old and the new, between Pet- 

 tenkofer and his pupils and Koch and his, 

 most important facts bearing upon the 

 etiology of the infectious diseases were 

 established. Gradually, however, the newer 

 and more correct theories of the modern 

 bacteriologists supplanted the older and 

 often incorrect theories of the Pettenkofer 

 school and in 1885 Koch became professor 

 of hygiene and bacteriology in the Univer- 

 sity of Berlin. This set the pace and within 

 the next few years the various professor- 

 ships of hygiene as they became vacant were 

 filled by the appointment of men trained in 

 the modern bacteriological technique. Thus 

 Gafifky, the discover of the typhoid bacillus, 

 went to Giessen, Loeffler, the co-discoverer 

 with Klebs of the diphtheria bacillus, to 

 Griefswald, Hueppe to Prague, von Behring 

 to Halle and Marburg, Carl Fraenkel to 



Marburg and Halle and Gartner to Jena. 

 At the same time hygienic institutes corre- 

 sponding somewhat to our municipal health 

 laboratories were founded in many of the 

 larger cities of Germany and Austria to 

 provide for the accurate bacteriological 

 diagnosis of the infectious diseases. The 

 largest and best-equipped of such institutes 

 is probably that of Professor Dunbar in 

 Hamburg, one of the few American-bom 

 scientists to make his career in Germany. 

 A more recent institute of the same gen- 

 eral character is that of the city of Frank- 

 furt a. M. ^^nder the able direction of Pro- 

 fessor Neisser. With the single exception 

 of the laboratories of the City of New York 

 there are no institutions in America which 

 are founded upon quite the same broad 

 combination of routine work and advanced 

 research as are these. 



As a result of the various factors opera- 

 ting to develop the modern science of hy- 

 giene in Europe we find that this subject 

 is now firmly established in all the German 

 and Austrian universities. It is a princi- 

 pal or major subject in every medical 

 school and there is an "ordentlieh Pro- 

 fessor" of hygiene in every university 

 where medicine is taught. Every student 

 of medicine must pass a rigid examina- 

 tion in hygiene before he can obtain his 

 degree and before he can practise his pro- 

 fession. As was to be expected from the 

 somewhat diverse lines of development hy- 

 giene has taken we find men of various 

 tendencies occupying the professorships. 

 On the one hand Fliigge and Gruber rep- 

 resent the older or Munich school at Ber- 

 lin and Munich, both trained in the Pet- 

 tenkofer methods but both greatly influ- 

 enced in their thought and work by the 

 newer bacteriology of Koch. In Berlin 

 also before the appointment of Professor 

 Fliigge, hygiene was brilliantly repre- 

 sented by another product of the Munich 



