August 22, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



247 



inevitable specialization and concentration 

 of work, become twenty-three sections and 

 three subsections in 1913, but so imperative 

 is the demand for mutual conference that 

 we have no less than fourteen meetings 

 arranged in which sections have found it 

 desirable to discuss various problems in 

 joint session. 



In what ways have we pursued and ex- 

 panded the work of our fathers? First, 

 unquestionably, in the development and 

 application of bacteriology. Koch's great 

 discovery of the life-history of the tubercle 

 bacillus was published in the year after the 

 London Congress, and what an enormous 

 body of knowledge has grown out of that 

 discovery ! We are learning to discriminate 

 between the essential and causal factors of 

 disease and the concomitants, such as com- 

 bined and terminal infections. The by- 

 products and the antibodies developed to 

 neutralize bacterial life, of which we see the 

 beneficent role in nature's own cure of an 

 acute specific disease, have been made to 

 yield their share in two important methods 

 of treatment — namely, sero-therapy and 

 vaccine-therapy. 



We have also faced the problem of 

 strengthening the phagocytosis of the pa- 

 tient. I need not dwell on the history of 

 the Klebs-LoefHer bacillus and the causa- 

 tion of diphtheria, nor on the indubitable 

 efficacy of the most important of all the 

 antitoxins, nor on the singular parallelism 

 between the bacteriological findings in 

 atypical throat exudations with the ambigu- 

 ous symptomatology which clinical observa- 

 tion reveals. Nor need I dwell on the ex- 

 tension of bacteriological investigation of 

 typhoid fever which has been fruitful in 

 new measures of prophylaxis and defence 

 of the community. 



We have learned something about the 

 natural history of the ultra-minute organ- 

 isms which as "filter passers" elude our 

 microscopic investigation. 



There are still great gaps in our knowl- 

 edge of the bacteriology of the acute specific 

 diseases, but it is a gain to have learned 

 from the study of recent epidemics that 

 infantile paralysis must be grouped with 

 the infective diseases, and, thanks to Flex- 

 ner, we know many of the reactions of its 

 elusive organism. 



Great advances have been made in proto- 

 zoology, in helminthology, and indeed in 

 the whole subject of the relation of para- 

 sites to the diseases of man and animals. 

 In tropical diseases these studies, as well as 

 bacteriology, have brought about a rich 

 harvest. Malta fever, plague, malaria, 

 sleeping sickness, have all yielded more or 

 less of their secrets. Sometimes the whole 

 cycle of the disease has been discovered, 

 rationalized in every respect, and its suc- 

 cessful treatment has been evolved. 



In other cases, as in malaria, sleeping 

 sickness, and yellow fever, where only parts 

 of the natural history of the disease have 

 been elucidated, nevertheless enough real 

 knowledge has been acquired to enable im- 

 portant, though sometimes costly, hygienic 

 measures to be successfully employed. 

 Here it is fitting that we should offer our 

 homage to our American brethren for their 

 splendid hygienic work in Cuba, in Pan- 

 ama, in the Philippines and in Costa Rica, 

 and for the efforts which they are organiz- 

 ing for a world-wide crusade against ankylo- 

 stoma disease. 



Chemical pathology has widened our 

 knowledge and our resources, and the mys- 

 tery of immunity has been to some extent 

 illuminated. 



The detailed examination of the morpho- 

 logical elements and the chemical charac- 

 ters of the blood and of other body fluids 

 has eventuated in the rewriting of some of 

 our physiology, and the pathological exten- 

 sion of the knowledge thus gained has im- 

 proved the diagnosis and the treatment of 

 several diseases. Thirty years ago Ord 



