September 26, 1884.] 



SCIENCE, 



303 



and ebb tide, noticed by Lieut. Greely, I think is 

 explained by the fact, that, to the south of Robeson 

 Channel, the sound is kept open more or less by a 

 strong current, and the water so exposed loses more 

 of its latent heat in the winter than that to the north 

 where it is protected by the ice-cap; and as the differ- 

 ence was only about .2 of 1°, it may be there is a differ- 

 ence of density. As to Mr. Cremin's theory that the 

 flattening of the earth at the poles brings the outer 

 crust nearer to the internal fires of the earth, I can 

 only say that I know it to be a fact that the surface in- 

 dications within the arctic circle do not bear him out 

 in his theory. As it is a well-known fact that the 

 earth north of the arctic circle is perpetually frozen 

 to a great depth, and as the earth probably cooled 

 from the surface, it is fair to presume that it at least 

 cooled as fast at the poles as at the equator ; and I 

 think that a residence of a year or two will convince 

 any reasonable man that the crust is tolerably thick 

 up there, if extreme cold has any thing to do with it. 



P. H. Ray. 



Washington, Sept. 13. 



Discrediting American science. 



On p. 48 of the current volume of Science you 

 take occasion to say, — 



"Work of value upon the subject of micro-organ- 

 isms is not done in this country, nor will it be until 

 some such encouragement is offered to investigators 

 as is the case in France and Germany. This kind of 

 research requires the rare combination of many forms 

 of training, added to a critical, analytical, and judicial 

 mind. These we can have; but until the facilities 

 for work are offered, until the necessity for personal 

 sacrifice and self-denial is done away with, we can 

 hope for no better work in the future than has been 

 done in the past: in other words, what is first needed 

 in order to place our own investigations upon an 

 equality with those of the two countries mentioned 

 above, is a thoroughly equipped, fully endowed labo- 

 ratory, with a strong corps of well-trained and sala- 

 ried officials." 



Now, while you doubtless had in mind, when pen- 

 ning this paragraph, the great desirability of more 

 systematic investigation in this country of those 

 plagues of mankind which annually cut short so 

 many valuable lives, I cannot allow this sweeping 

 and unjust assertion to pass unnoticed, and to stand 

 as a disparagement to American science and a 

 reproach to American investigators. Whether you 

 realize it or not, it is nevertheless a fact, that the 

 patient student of micro-organisms in this country 

 has been laboring under the enormous disadvantage 

 that his work, however valuable it may be, is discred- 

 ited at home, and unnoticed abroad, while the most 

 absurd generalizations of the European worker are 

 received with approval there, and enthusiasm here. 



Sternberg has worked for years on intermittent 

 fever, tuberculosis, septicaemia, yellow-fever, germi- 

 cides and allied subjects ; and, beyond his own writings 

 and the reviews of his books, what is there in Ameri- 

 can literature to show that such a man has existed ? 

 About the time that Pasteur announced the discovery 

 of his now celebrated 'new disease' produced by 

 inoculating rabbits with the saliva of a child dead of 

 hydrophobia, Sternberg demonstrated the virulence 

 of normal human saliva when rabbits were inoculated 

 with it. 1 He also demonstrated beyond question that 

 this was due to a micrococcus which might be culti- 

 vated to the eighth culture without losing its viru- 

 lence, and even showed that an immunity might be 



1 Bulletin of National board of health, April 30, 1381. 



granted by protective inoculation. 1 Both had been 

 working at the same time with the same organism, 

 and had reached substantially the same result. Pas- 

 teur's work was published as something remarkable 

 the world over; while Sternberg's — well, we must 

 admit it received some credit abroad, even if it fell 

 flat at home. Again: Sternberg's tests of germicides 

 are, perhaps, the most extensive and satisfactory in- 

 vestigations in this line that have ever been made. 

 He was certainly one of the first who attempted to 

 obtain exact results by allowing a disinfectant of a 

 given strength to act on a particular disease-germ for 

 a given length of time, and then tested his results 

 by cultivation and inoculation experiments. 2 And 

 surely his experiments and results in photographing 

 micro-organisms cannot be set down as entirely value- 

 less. 3 



A short time ago the rather absurd speculations of 

 Tyndall, in regard to the nature of the immunity 

 from contagious diseases which is conferred by a pre- 

 vious attack, attracted wide-spread attention both in 

 Europe and America. Tyndall's views were based 

 upon the theories of Pasteur; and these, in turn, 

 rested upon a very narrow basis of experimentation 

 with fowl-cholera, which, at the time they were put 

 forth, were far-fetched, and now are antiquated. 

 Pasteur is a chemist, and Tyndall a physicist; and 

 neither has any adequate conception of the fact that 

 there are processes going on in the animal body which 

 both chemistry and physics are incompetent to explain. 

 Pasteur's chemical explanation of the mystery of im- 

 munity — that it was the exhaustion from the body of 

 something necessary for the nutrition of the virulent 

 germ ; something that, once exhausted, was not again 

 replaced — had a great fascination for the great 

 English physicist, and he received it with childlike 

 trust. What objection could there be, indeed, from 

 his stand-point, to the view that a living body may be 

 compared in every respect with the test-tube and the 

 flask with which he is in the habit of experimenting 

 in his laboratory ? And when a Frenchman and an 

 Englishman unite in pressing so plausible a theory, 

 we surely could hardly expect from past experience 

 that the American scientific editor would pay much 

 attention to the vulgar home worker, no matter how 

 striking his experiments, or how conclusive his demon- 

 strations. I trust, however, you will pardon me for 

 calling your attention to the fact that more than two 

 years ago I demonstrated that immunity was only 

 relative, and never absolute; that the most susceptible 

 individual possessed a certain degree of immunity 

 which can be accurately measured ; and that all 

 degrees of immunity may be overcome by a sufficient 

 increase in the dose of virus. The immunity of the 

 animal body, then, in no sense resembles the exhausted 

 cultivation-liquid in the flasks of Pasteur and Tj T ndall, 

 which no increase in the amount of virulent material 

 added can ever induce to support the development 

 of new generations of the microbe; and the honor of 

 demonstrating this radical difference is due to Ameri- 

 can investigations. 



I went farther than this, however, and showed that 

 this theory of our European friends was absolutely 

 untenable; because broth made with distilled water 

 from the flesh of an animal that had been granted 

 a very complete immunity was just as favorable a 

 medium for the growth of the virus as that made from 



1 Bacteria. By Dr. Antoine Magnin and George M. 

 Sternberg, M.D., F.R.M.S. New York, William Wood <& Co., 

 1884. pp. 355-376. 



2 Ibid., pp. 209-235. National hoard of health bulletin, July 

 23, 1881. J 



3 Photo-micrographs, etc. By George M. Sternberg, M.D. 

 New York, William Wood & Co., 1S84. 



