378 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



great majority of medical men will admit the great benefit that quinine has con- 

 ferred upon the human race; valuable instruments have been invented for the 

 detection of disease ; to sanitary science all honor is due, as it has greatly pro- 

 longed the average period of human life, and in the last few years has kept fully 

 abreast with the spirit of the times. 



But notwithstanding all these improvements and discoveries, the same prog- 

 ress has not been made until recently in the etiology of disease. It must be 

 acknowledged that the causes of disease, and the understanding of them, lie at 

 the very foundation of successful medical art. Without this knowledge the physi- 

 cian is left to his own speculations, or follows the lead of some able authority who 

 has boldly marked out new channels of thought, and whose theories (too often 

 metaphysical) have attracted adherents from all parts of the world. In this way 

 theories after theories have arisen, which have controlled the minds of men, and 

 perhaps for a generation became the established principles which guide in the 

 treatment of disease; we have only to refer to the practice of bleeding, so ably 

 championed by the great and good Dr. Rush of this country, which was only dis- 

 continued when it was found to be not only unnecessary, but positively injurious 

 in very many cases. Following this radical treatment came the revival of the 

 old but somewhat modified . expectarit method, which is practiced by physicians 

 in very many cases down to the present day. It consists in waiting and watch- 

 ing for the manifestations of the disease, and meeting the symptoms, and combat- 

 ing them by treatment as they may arise, supporting the patient for the approach- 

 ing crisis, but relying very much upon the recuperative powers of the system to 

 expel the cause. 



These frequent and sometimes violent innovations, naturally produced sects, 

 or systems of medicine, which as the world knows have fluctuated from one ex- 

 treme to the other. During this conflict of opinion as to the cause and treatment 

 of disease, scientific men have, especially of late years, been engaged in a spirited 

 discussion as to the origin of life ; the desire of men to understand it has been a 

 subject of great inquiry for a long time. Some have contended that life had its 

 start from inorganic matter. Ernest Haeckel, the philosopher, is a firm believer 

 in this theory; he goes so far as to claim that as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, iron, 

 sulphur, etc., are found in inorganic nature, and the same elements are also 

 found in animal and vegetable life, therefore, that all life must have originally 

 started spontaneously from the union of some of these elements ; so firmly was he 

 convinced of this that he prevailed with his government to appoint a commission, 

 himself at its head, to settle the question ; but after long and repeated trials the 

 commission closed its work without accomphshing anything. This theory is not 

 only accepted by many medical men, but some of them have applied it as the 

 cause of disease, and believe that at least all of the epidemic and contagious dis- 

 eases originate from spontaneous generation; they believe that the specific poison 

 arises from the decomposition of dead animal or vegetable matter and is diffused 

 in the atmosphere and thus affects great numbers of people ; or that it may be 

 generated in the body of the diseased, or dead subject, and contracted by those 



