MICRO-ORGANISMS AND DISEASE 



INTRODUCTION 



The relation of micro-organisms to disease is admitted 

 to be very intimate ; with special regard to infectious 

 diseases there exists now no doubt that specific microbes 

 are the causa caiisans, but also in a number of diseases not 

 infectious in the ordinary term — i.e. not communicable from 

 individual to individual — an important relation between a 

 specific microbe and the disease itself has been proved to 

 exist. Amongst the infectious or communicable diseases 

 there are still some in which the satisfactory demonstration 

 of specific microbes has not been achieved yet, as in hydro- 

 phobia, variola, syphilis, measles, whooping-cough, &c. ; but 

 in a large number of maladies which affect man and animals, 

 and which from the ascertained etiological data are of the 

 nature of communicable diseases, the demonstration of the 

 specific microbes is an established fact. Amongst the 

 diseases which do not strictly belong to the communicable 

 diseases, there are some in which it has been either proved 

 or made highly probable that microbes have an important 



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