502 



rature. [Jun 



bers * * * * many of the secretions may contain them without 

 perceptible injury to the health, while hosts of them are invariably 

 present in the fluids, and in and about the superficial cells of the 

 mucous membrane of the mouth of all persons, even in the most 

 vigorous health." All fungi and schizomycetes feed upon decay- 

 ing organic matter, and therefore their presence does not prove 

 that they are the cause of the disease. The assumption of a dif- 

 ferent species of bacterium to each disease is not warranted by 

 our present knowledge of these low existences, and if, as our 

 author asserts " the virulence of the virus decreases as the bac- 

 teria in it increase in number," the bacterium theory seems 

 scarcely tenable. Dr. Beale asserts that he has never been able 

 to discover a bacterium in pure vaccine lymph, and that those 

 who regard the solid particles found in vaccine as bacteria com- 

 mit the grave error of confounding the actual contagious " bio- 

 plasts," derived from the living matter of the cow, with bacte- 

 rium cells, from which they differ visibly in the want of regular 

 form and the absence of a cell-wall. Dr. Beale believes the con- 

 tagium or virus of every contagious disease to consist of extreme- 

 ly minute particles of the living matter of the species infected by 

 the disease. This contagium is "bioplasm" become poisonous, 

 and " each kind of contagious bioplasm manifests its own specific 

 actions, and only these." He admits, however, that such particles 

 cannot, in the present state of our knowledge, be distinguished 

 from healthy particles of the same size ; and he also admits that 

 it is remarkable that one form of disease has always been found 

 accompanied by a specific organism that has not been found in 

 any other. 



May not the truth lie between the ,two opposing schools, and, 

 although the great majority of diseases are caused by organic 

 changes in the protoplasm or in the secretions (Dr. Richardson's 

 theory) of the infected species, may not a few, especially those 

 which are localized in their manifestation, be caused by micro- 

 scopic organisms ? We know that the entozoa sometimes pro- 

 duce positive disease, and that certain skin diseases are caused by 

 acari — why then may not certain lower existences be poisonous, 

 and cause some of the less common forms of disease? 



Dr. Beale asserts that the pus corpuscle or globule has no cell- 

 wall, and that " the bioplasm of tissue, being supplied with an in- 

 creased quantity of pabulum, may give rise to pus." A too rapid 

 multiplication, resulting in the formation of particles that have lost 

 the power of forming tissue, is, in Dr. Beale's opinion, the origin 

 of pus. Tubercle, he asserts, can be microscopically jmown to 

 consist of small protoplasmic masses of about the size of a red 

 blood corpuscle, these particles are living, and grow, but more 

 slowly than pus corpus hey differ also in their 



firmer consistence. Thus there is a tendency to heredity, yet 

 tubercle may be developed by bad hygienic conditions in person 

 free from hereditary taint. 



