APPENDIX II 355 



ment " was maintained by me forty years ago, and supported by 

 facts published by me and at tbat time novel, concerning the peach- 

 coloured bacterium (B. rubescens or roseo persicinum) and the frequent 

 pleomorphism of the bacteria, and that I, in common with many 

 other biologists — including my regretted friend, iSlie Metchnikoff — 

 have continued to hold and advocate that view in spite of the ad- 

 hesion of " medical bacteriologists " to Koch's doctrine of the fixity 

 of bacterial " species." 



Dr. Adami now endeavours to give his Croonian lectures a flavour 

 of novelty by claiming for some medical bacteriologists who have 

 recently accepted the long-known views of myself, Warming, Zopff, 

 and Metchnikoff, the merit of a new discovery. He actually, at this 

 late hour of the controversy, sets out, whilst announcing himself 

 as a " militant " reformer and missionary, to teach us what we have 

 done our best to teach him from his student days onwards. 



So much for matters of taste. Now as to some of the matters of 

 fact misrepresented by Dr. Adami. 



(a) Under the heading, " Nature of variation " (p. 838) Dr. 

 Adami confuses the term " variation " and " variability," and 

 thereby renders all his argument " suspect." No one disputes (as 

 Dr. Adami asserts that some do) that variability is a primary quality 

 of living matter inherent and not acquired. On the other hand, no 

 one denies that actual variations are brought about by the influence 

 of forces acting from without upon this labile variable living matter. 



(6) Farther on (at the top of p. 840) Dr. Adami states that I 

 deny that there can be external influences of such a nature that 

 specific variation may be induced by them. I have never at any 

 time denied, but on the contrary always maintained, the truth of 

 this elementary proposition. Biologists do not require Dr. Adami 

 to pose, as he says, " under the shade of Harvey," and to cite well- 

 known facts in order to be persuaded of this. It is really unfortunate 

 that Dr. Adami should pretend that these facts are unknown to 

 those whom, with some cryptic implication, he terms " academic 

 biologists." 



(c) Moreover, Dr. Adami is hopelessly wrong in his use of Herbert 

 Spencer's term " direct adaptation." He says that the worker in 

 pathogenic bacteriology is impressed with the fact that " direct 

 adaptation " is one of the basal phenomena of living matter. This 

 is the great discovery which he thinks it his duty to teach to academic 

 biologists. He is singularly unfortunate, for he proceeds at once to 

 show that he has never understood what Herbert Spencer meant by 

 " direct adaptation." Dr. Adami says that direct adaptation is 

 " specific modification in response to a specific alteration in environ- 

 ment." That is not so. As Mr. Herbert Spencer is at some pains 

 to point out, a specific modification in response to a specific altera- 

 tion in environment is not necessarily an " adaptation." It may in 



2a2 



