us 



$th April, 1887. 



W. H. Patterson, Esq., M.R.I.A., in the Chair. 



Conway Scott, Esq., B.E., read a Paper on 



EPIDEMIC DISEASES: CAN THEY BE STAMPED 



OUT? 



In the course of his remarks Mr. Scott said that the great 

 characteristic property of infection is its innate power of 

 reproducing itself or multiplying itself without limit, and, 

 under certain circumstances, without the slightest loss of its 

 deadly qualities. Milk is a medium by which disease is 

 very frequently communicated to persons, and the infinitesimal 

 amount of infection falling into milk has multiplied itself so 

 as to fill the whole milk supply, every glass of which can 

 carry the disease as readily as the original matter. On the 

 whole, there can be little doubt but that the human race has 

 suffered infinitely more from epidemic diseases than from all 

 the wars that have ever been engaged in and all the battles 

 that have ever been fought. The lecturer went on to speak of 

 the organic nature of all epidemic diseases, and said that the 

 late Dr. Ritchie, who was one of the largest-minded scientific 

 men that Ulster had ever produced, was a most thorough 

 believer in the organic nature of all epidemic diseases, and that 

 he more than forty years ago, when these subjects were hardly 

 ever thought of, applied his practical knowledge to the 

 stamping out of such diseases with great success. Mr. Scott 

 then went on to deal with the different modes of disinfection, 

 which means any process by means of which organisms of all 

 kinds are killed, as every process which can kill ordinary 

 organisms will to a much greater extent kill these disease- 

 producing organisms, which cannot be seen, and are only 



