290 MICROBES, FERMENTS, AND MOULDS. 
with the present state of science, and is in no case 
applicable to virulent and contagious diseases. 
Theory of Charlton Bastian, and the English Fol- 
lowers of his School.—This theory, held by the most 
ardent opponents of the school of Tyndall and Pasteur, 
is set forth in the writings of Lewis and Lionel Beale. 
It scarcely differs from the one we have just stated. 
Lewis thinks it very evident that the presence of 
microphyta of the blood is only a secondary pheno- 
menon; that the change in the fluids of the body is 
effected before the slightest trace of their presence can 
be discovered. This is plainly Robin’s theory.* 
Beale is still more absolute and exclusive.f He 
holds that the solid particles of vaccine are not bacteria 
nor micrococci, but bioplasts, or formulated elements 
which have their source in the living substance of the 
cow, and these bioplasts constitute the effective con- 
tagion of all virulent diseases. Bioplasts are extremely 
minute particles of the living substance of the species 
affected by the disease. The contagion is a bioplasma, 
and each species of contagious bioplasma manifests its 
peculiar specific action, and that only. We must 
leave it to others to admire and paraphrase this scien- 
tific jargon, which seems intended to take us several 
ages back. We must, however, observe that Beale’s 
theory is somewhat allied to another, much more 
serious and complete, of which we have now to speak. 
* Les Microphytes du Sang, 1881. 
+ The Microscope in Medicine, 1882. 
