BACTERIOLOaY. 



INTRODUCTION. 



"Omne Vivum ex Vivo" — The Overthrow of the Doctrine of Spontaneous 

 Generation — Earlier Bacteriological Studies — The Birth of Modern 

 Bacteriology. 



Bacteriology may be said to have had its beginning 

 with the observations of Leeuwenhoek in the latter part 

 of the seventeenth century. Though its most rapid and 

 important development has taken place since about 1880, 

 still, a review of the various evolutionary phases through 

 which it has passed in the course of more than two hundred 

 years reveals an entertaining and instructive history. From 

 the very outset its history is inseparably connected with 

 that of medicine, and from the outcome of bacteriological 

 research preventive medicine, in its modern conception, 

 received its primary impulse. Through a more intimate 

 acquaintance with the biological activities of the unicellular 

 vegetable micro-organisms modern hygiene has attained 

 almost the dignity of an exact science, and properly merits 

 the importance and prominence now generally accorded to 

 it. From studies in the domain of bacteriology our knowl- 

 edge of the causation, course, and prevention of infectious 

 diseases is daily becoming more accurate, and it is needless 

 to emphasize the relation of such knowledge to the manifold 

 problems that present themselves to the student of modern 

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