PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 
ON 
BACTERIOLOGY AND THE WAR, WITH COMMENTS 
ON THE NATIONAL NEGLECT OF SCIENCE. 
By ERNEST GLYNN, M.A., M.D. Cantab., F.R.C.P., 
| Captain R.A.M.C. (T.), 
Professor of Pathology in the University of Liverpool. 
[Read to the Society, October 22, 1915.] 
Bacteria are usually classed as plants, but they possess 
at least one characteristic of animals.* They are one of the 
smallest, but probably not the smallest, forms of living matter. 
One bacterlum may measure only a 1/10,000 of an inch. 
Bacteria may be divided into two great classes, the harmless 
and the harmful. The latter are injurious on account of the 
poisons which they contain or excrete; it is these bacteria 
with which we are specially concerned to-night. 
Most people are probably aware that in war more soldiers 
die of disease, than are killed in battle or die of wounds; 
a very large proportion of the disease is due to harmful 
bacteria. ‘From cholera the Allies lost 10,000 men in the 
Crimea in 1854, and it has been stated that the Turks at one 
time during the last Balkan War were losing upwards of 500 
men a day. Plague in 1828 took a toll of 6,000 lives in one 
month from the Russian army in Turkey. From all causes 
that army, which left Russia 100,000 strong, left 85,000 dead 
on Turkish soil, and had half its total strength in hospital 
at one time.’’+ Dysentery caused 1,342 deaths and 38,000 cases 
* The cell wall contains no cellulose but chitin. 
+ ‘Sanitation in War,’ P. 8. Lelean. Churchill, London, 1915. 
