ESSAYS ON BACTERIOLOGY. 147 



whose piirpoee should be, standing upon the double 

 ground of bacteriologist and clinician, to consider 

 some of the non-bacterial factors in diseases caused by 

 bacteria. Such a paper may serve, and is intended to 

 serve, in some sense as a culmination of the series pre- 

 pared for the State Medical Society. By such a pa- 

 per, too, he hopes to aid in reconciling bacteriology 

 and clinical medicine by showing that a beautiful har- 

 mony exists between them. 



There are two classes of physicians to whom an ad- 

 dress of this natxire might be directed as a special plea : 



First, there are some, a diminishing company, who, 

 by reason of grossly defective knowledge and equally 

 gross misunderstanding of bacteriologists, have con- 

 ceived a pronounced and outspoken antagonism, even 

 amounting to scoffing, against the germ explanation 

 of disease. They love to hurl such epithets as bac- 

 teria-maniac, but they never dare to allow themselves 

 to be inoculated with cultiu"es of anthrax or tubercle 

 bacilli. From such men emanate the furious anti- 

 microbic articles which occasionally appear in medical 

 publications, the best answer to which is the fact that 

 no well-informed man answers them at all. 



Second, there are those who, being intelligent and 

 competent physicians, are yet perplexed with many 

 doubts in regard to the germ theory of disease because 

 they cannot reconcile it with the facts of clinical med- 

 icine. They recognize the meaning of the general 

 acceptance of the theory, and feel the force of its sim- 



