382 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



cable to other infectious diseases; it makes the question one of the greatest im- 

 portance. We know now that small-pox originates from germ life and that the 

 vaccine virus, by inoculation prevents it ; we have every reason to believe that 

 yellow-fever comes from the same cause and that it is this germ-life that gives it 

 its deadly specific contagion. Dr. Freire, of Rio Janeiro, Brazil, who has had 

 much experience with yellow-fever, claims that he has discovered the microbe of 

 that disease, he reports that he has inoculated four hundred persons with the 

 attenuated virus, and that they remained protected when exposed to the disease. 

 Further reports upon this subject are looked forward to with great interest. 



When Hahnemann, the. founder of the homeopathic system of medicine 

 announced his theory of similars or "like cures like" almost one hundred years 

 ago, it met with bitter opposition and ridicule from the great body of the medical 

 profession in Europe and in this country, opposition on account of the principle 

 of the theory, and ridicule because of-the great attenuation of his remedies; were 

 he able to rise from the slumbers of near half a century he would no doubt be 

 much surprised as well as gratified to find that the foremost leader of medical 

 thought in the world, has by the most laborious study demonstrated as a great truth 

 that the cause that will produce a disease will, if attenuated, and used by inocu- 

 lation in a healthy subject, remove the condition which gives rise to the disease. 



But it will be seen that while Pasteur's experiments give great weight to the ' 

 theory of Hahnemann, that his attenuations are not as great, and that when car- 

 ried beyond a certain degree of strength, the virus loses it power to protect against 

 the original cause. 



In further confirmation of the germ origin of disease we have the testimony 

 of Dr. Crudeli, of Rome, Italy. In his address before the late Medical Congress 

 upon malaria, he shows from his experiments with other co-workers that the cause 

 is a living specific ferment, contained in the soil, and that three conditions are nec- 

 essary to its production "first, the proper temperature; second, humidity of the 

 soil; third, the direct action of the oxygen of the air, acting upon the vegetable 

 ferment ; these conditions acting together will increase the ferment and cause its 

 depression in the surrounding atmosphere." In his experiments covering a pe- 

 riod of over five years, he found that the germs were in the air, the soil, and in 

 the blood of the subject suffering from malaria. 



The germ cause of disease has also been found in purulent ophthalmia, an in- 

 fectious disease of the eye, occurring in new born children, as shown in a trans- 

 lation from the French by Dr. Tiffany of this city, and published in the St. Lonis 

 Medical Journal for August. As the result of this discovery, the disease has been 

 almost extirpated in those hospitals, where the treatment for the destruction of 

 the parasite has been adopted. 



But general public attention had not been directed to this subject until the 

 recent disclosures of Dr. Koch in his study of Asiatic cholera, it was natural that 

 the appearance of this disease in France would arouse the fear, and excite the 

 curiosity of the people on both sides of the Atlantic. It may be known to most 

 of your readers, that France and Germany each sent a commission of medical 



