1885.] ^' Pathology ^^\from an ^^ Evolution Point of Vieiv.''^ 41 



To make clear my position I quoted cases which had occurred in 

 my own practice which seemed to me to present features bearing upon 

 my ideas. I have since taken the trouble to look into published 

 records from others, and I have been both surprised and pleased at 

 the mass of evidence which has accumulated in support of the views 

 expressed by me. Some of this evidence I propose to bring forward, 

 restricting myself as far as possible within bounds, which in a mixed 

 Society like this it is necessary to observe. I propose again to follow 

 the plan before laid down, and to take up briefly the consideration of 

 my subject from the side taken in my last paper. 



Firstly, then. The consideration of cases which seem to indicate 

 the fact of germ transmutation. About a year ago was published a 

 very remarkable book by Dr. Kenneth. Millican, which to a great 

 degree expresses what I have often thought. 



I should in passing observe that prior to the publication of the 

 book I had written and read to various colleagues of mine views so 

 similar to Dr. Millican's that I was in many cases quite startled at 

 the similarity of our ideas. I mention this to define my position with 

 regard to my theories, and at the same time that I may be enabled to 

 express my appreciation of the completeness and originality with 

 which the author has worked out the subject. In the book in ques- 

 tion a case is reported which occurred in Dr. Millican's practice, and 

 which I give in his own words as far as I can conveniently do so. 

 He writes : — 



'* I first saw my patient, a strong healthy farm labourer, twenty 

 years of age, on the third day of a severe feverish attack, when I 

 found the evening temperature 102° F. He had been ' out of sorts ' 

 some week or ten days previously. ^^^ ^^ ^' He lay prostrate, at 

 times delirious, and had two or three ' Diphtheritic ^ -looking patches on 

 the tonsils. I succeeded with difficulty in detaching a small portion 

 of the membrane from the tonsils, but found on my next visit that the 

 patch had been renewed. On the twelfth day of the fever a crop of 

 * rose spots ' were visible on the body. These both in their character 

 find appearance resembled the rash of typhus. The temperature had 

 risen to 105° F. ^ '^' On the fifteenth day, three days after this 

 extreme temperature, it fell again to 100° F,, and the patient seemed 

 easier. The mother called my attention to some shotty papules on the 

 body. 



" The seventeenth day, two days later, saw the first crop of rose 

 spots almost entirely replaced by new ones. 



" By the twenty-first day of the fever, or six days after the appear- 

 ance of the papules, fie looked, as the mother remarked, for all the 

 world as if he had been vaccinated. The papules ran the course of an 

 ordinary small-pox eruption, and after the thirtieth day of the fever 

 he began to mend rapidly." Dr. Millican adds : — 



'* The combination of symptoms here was remarkable. But for the 

 astounding nature of the assertion one would have felt inclined to say 

 that the patient was suffering from a combination of typhus fever, 

 with diphtheria and small-pox. It was found quite impossible, after 

 the most careful search, to trace any source of contagion for any one 

 of the diseases which were here presented or counterfeited. There 

 was no possible chance of ordinary infection, for the patient lived in 

 an isolated village, from which he had not been so far as four miles 

 for many months. 



