BACTERIOLOGY. 



INTKODUCTION. 



" Omne vivum ex vivo "—The overthrow of the doctrine of spontaneous 

 generation— Earlier bacteriological studies— The Wrth of modern bacteri- 

 ology. 



The study of Bacteriology may be said to have had 

 its beginning with the observations of Antony van 

 Leeuwenhoek in the year 1675. Though it is during 

 the past decade and a half that this line of research has 

 received its greatest impulse, yet by a review of the 

 developmental stages through which it has passed in its 

 life of more than two centuries we see that it has a 

 most interesting and instructive history. From the 

 very outset its history is inseparably connected with 

 that of medicine, and as it now stands its relations to 

 hygiene and preventive medicine are of the utmost im- 

 portance. It is, indeed, to a more intimate acquaintance 

 with the biological activities of the unicellular, vege- 

 table micro-organisms that modern hygiene owes much 

 of its value and our knowledge of infectious diseases 

 has reached the position it now occupies. Though the 

 contributions which have done most to place bacteriology 

 on the footing of a science are those of recent years, still, 

 during the earlier stages of its development, many obser- 

 vations were made which formed the foundation work 

 for much that was to follow. Before regularly begin - 



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