xxiv President's Address 



important field of research to the pathologist and physician, 

 and makes reasonable the hope that we may some day have 

 the prophylactic principle, so successful as regards vaccina- 

 tion against small-pox, applicable to other serious contagious 

 and epidemic diseases. 



DISEASE GERMS. 



During the last few years the question of disease germs 

 has occupied the attention of numerous well-known biolo- 

 gists, microscopists, and others, and we have seen announced 

 from time to time the discovery that certain forms of micro- 

 scopic organisms appeared in connection with certain 

 diseases, and are regarded rather as a cause than an effect. In 

 nearly every instance these organisms were found to be of 

 forms known as bacteria, bacilli, and micrococci, which, in 

 one or other of their varieties, are said to be of all disease 

 the accursed germs. It is stated that in anthrax or 

 splenic fever, and in a peculiar malady known as wool- 

 sorters' disease, a special form of bacterium is the delinquent ; 

 while in diphtheria, cow-pock, and in a disease amongst 

 fowls known as chicken-cholera, micrococci are the cause ; 

 and in tuberculosis and leprosy the bacilli are concerned. 

 Recently during the cholera outbreak in Europe it was 

 announced that Professor Koch had discovered a peculiar 

 comma-shaped bacillus in the alimentary canal of persons 

 affected with the disease, leading to the inference that these 

 germs were the cause of cholera. If this be true, it leads 

 the way to give successful battle to the disease. But 

 although the presence of these germs in various forms of 

 disease has been demonstrated beyond a doubt, the relation 

 they hold to the diseases themselves has not yet been so 

 satisfactorily proved. Those minute organisms in some _ of 

 their forms are universally present wherever organic change 

 or decay i3 going on — and especially where vitality is im- 

 paired — present in the saliva, in the fur of the tongue, and 

 about the teeth in healthy persons ; indeed, it may be 

 doubted if they are not always present on every mucous 



