960 The American Naturalist. [November, 
members of " Boards of Health " and other hygienic organizations, 
and physicians, rolling off the word " contagious " with the utmost 
nonchalance in connection with Actinomycosis, a disease due to 
a fungus which invariably finds its primary origin outside any 
form of animal life, and primarily infests some form of vegetation 
in our fields and pastures. We find such authorities speaking of 
this disease as " contagious," because, by intentional inoculation of 
the Actinomyces from diseased to healthy animals, it has been 
found that, under favorable nutrient conditions, it will continue its 
development in the same. This absurd idea, that contagiousness 
and transmissibility are one and the same thing, has found its 
chief support in the teachings of Robert Koch and his school. 
So long as Koch keeps himself confined to the exact observa- 
tional and descriptive ground of bacteriology his reputation is 
unquestionable, but the moment he touches the field of general 
pathology he shows the utmost incapacity for his work, and, as 
intimated above, has done more to mislead the medical profession 
of to-day regarding a logical understanding of the true nature of 
diseases genetically, than all other writers combined. Even the 
great authority of the world's greatest epidemologist, Pettenkofer, 
and the generally sharp and logical teachings of Hueppe, seem to 
have been utterly unable to stem the tide of misconception set 
flowing in full flood through the teachings and example of Robert 
Koch and his school. 
They have spoken of the " contagium " of anthrax, black-leg, 
cholera, schweineseuche, and such diseases, all of which are 
faculatively parasitic ; all of which find their locus of primary 
origin invariably outside of any and every animal organism. 
Why? 
Because such diseases are transmissible to healthy from dis- 
eased animals by artificial (or accidental) inoculation. The same 
is true of endogenous diseases if we have susceptible animals. 
Anthrax can be transmitted to a man from the dirt where a 
diseased sheep, or ox, may have been buried. Syphilis can be 
transmitted from a diseased to a healthy man by an accident with 
a scalpel. What is the difference, then ? According to Koch and 
his followers they are both alike. They are, in one sense, both 
