306 Profissor TyndaH on Germs. 



He also wished to free his mind, and if possible the minds of 

 others, from the uncertainty and confusion which now beset the 

 doctrine of " spontaneous generation." Pasteur has pronounced 

 it "a chimera," and expressed the undoubting conviction that, this 

 being so, it is possible to remove parasitic diseases from tlie earth. 

 To the medical profession, therefore, and through them to human- 

 ity at large, this question is one of the last importance. But the 

 state of medical opinion regarding it is not satisfactory. In a 

 recent number of the British 3Iedical Journal, and iu answer to 

 the question, " in what way is contagium generated and communi- 

 cated ?" Messrs. Braidwood and Yacher reply that, notwithstand- 

 ing " an almost incalculable amount of patient labor, the actual 

 results obtained, especially as regards the manner of generation of 

 contagium, have been most disappointing. Observers are even 

 yet at variance whether these minute particles, whose discovery 

 we have just noticed, and other disease germs, are always pro- 

 duced from like bodies previously existing, or whether they do 

 not, under certain favorable conditions, spring into existence de 



With a view to the possible diminution of the uncertainty thus 

 described, the author submits, without further preface to the 

 "" ' Society, and especially to those who study the etiology 



se, a description of the mode of pn ' -"— -^^ =« ^i-- 



, and the results to which it has let 



mber of chambers, or ( 

 glass front, its top, bottom, 

 the back is a little door which opens and closes on hinges, while 

 into the sides are inserted two panes of glass, facing^ each other. 

 The top is perforated in the middle by a hole two inches in diame- 

 ter, closed air-tight by a sheet of india-rubber. This sheet is 

 pierced in the middle by a pin, and through the pin-hole is passed 

 the shank of a long pipette ending above in a small funnel. A cu- 

 cular tin collar two inches in diameter and one inch and a halt 

 high, surrounds the pipette, the space between both being ])ackca 

 with cotton-wool moistened by glycerine. Thus the pipette, in 

 moving up and down, is not only firmly clasped by the india- 

 rubber, but it also passes through a stuffing box of sticky cotton- 

 wool. The width of the aperture closed by the india-rubber 

 secures the free lateral play of the lower end of the pipette. Int^ 

 two other smaller apertures in the top of the case are inseited, 

 air-tight, the open ends of two narrow tubes, intended to connect 

 the interior space with the atmosphere. The tubes are bent 

 several times up and down, so as to intercept and retain the [>arti- 

 -ied by such feeble currents as changes of temperature 

 luse to set in between the outer and the inner air. 

 ^ottom of the box is pierced with two rows, sometimes 

 with a single row of apertures, in which are fixed, air-tight, large 

 test-tubes, intended to contain the liquid to be exposed to tiie 

 action of the moteless air. 



On Sept. 10 the first case of this kind was closed. The passage 

 of a concentrated beam across it through its two side winll^\\^ 



bOyai feociety, 



f disease, a description of the mode of procedu 

 nquiry, and the results to which it has led. 

 A number of chambers, or cases, were constructed, each 



.ghtc 



