AND MEDICAL SCIENCE 329 



patient. Are we to suppose that these microorganisms arise 

 spontaneously ? " 



In the debate which took place at the Royal Medical and Chirur- 

 gical Society, Mr. Hutchinson met with the same kind of intoler- 

 ance, and there was a similar ignoring of facts which would have 

 permitted his critics to find less difficulty in accounting for the 

 presence of the Bacillus in a case in which leprosy had originated 

 de novo. They should not have forgotten the specific Bacillus of 

 " Pasteur's septicaemia," which can be produced at will by skilful 

 investigators with the aid not of semi-putrid food but of a few 

 drops of putrid blood. It was not even absolutely necessary, as I 

 have shown in this communication, that they should believe in a 

 de novo origin of the Bacillus itself ; it was still less necessary that 

 they should require its presence to be demonstrated in the bad 

 fish or other food ; and it was absurd, as I take it, gravely to 

 attempt to shunt the real question by the gratuitous statement 

 that " the origin of the germs of disease was probably in the 

 remote geological past." It is a pity the able author of this 

 sentiment did not give us some hint as to the mode of production 

 of these germs in the past, and tell us what his warrant was for 

 using the word " probably " in such a connection. 



What I have said in regard to the possible de novo origin of 

 tuberculosis would, in fact, with slight variations be applicable in 

 regard to leprosy. It cannot be denied that the disease is to a 

 slight extent contagious, but there is much evidence to show that 

 in the main it arises de novo. There is certainly nothing unreason- 

 able in the supposition that putrid fish, or other bad food of like 

 kind, may carry into the system Bacteria and the toxic products 

 which they have formed, and that the continued influence of such 

 bodies may, in some persons, act as irritants, and either engender 

 or awaken organisms in this or that tissue having the character- 

 istics of the leprosy Bacillus — just as the boiled dilute liquor 

 ammonias injected into the subcutaneous tissue of a guinea-pig 

 or a rabbit produces, even within a few hours, swarms of the 

 Bacillus met with in " Pasteur's septicaemia," or as two or three 

 drops of putrid blood in the same situation may give rise to the 

 appearance throughout the body of swarms of the more distinctly 

 specific BacilU which suffice for the indefinite propagation of 

 " Davaine's septicaemia." 



In any case the importance of diligently seeking after the cause 

 of leprosy must be admitted, and Mr. Hutchinson is obviously 



