88 



DE. BASTIAN ON THE 



of sucli ferments into a Bpecific kind of activity, wholly apart 

 from the influence of any specific contagia coming from without*. 



Even if independent ferment-organisms of common or special 

 kinds do make their appearance during any process of zymosis 

 originated in the manner above suggested, they would, from the 

 point of view of the aetiology of disease, be just as much conse- 

 quences of the morbific influences, as proliferation of tissue- 

 elements is a consequence of the direct application of acetic acid 

 or any other irritant. 



But here, in order to make this point of view more plain, a 

 short digression is necessary. 



The intracellular fermentation in vegetal tissues supplies us 

 with a kind of link between the ordinary processes of fermenta- 

 tion and the zymotic processes of animals. MM. Lechartier and 

 Bellamy, as well as Pasteur and others, have now clearly shown 

 that in vegetal tissues placed under certain abnormal or unhealthy 

 conditions, fermentative phenomena take place essentially similar 

 to those occurring in solutions containing independent ferment- 

 organisms. And just as the vegetal cell can do what, in other 



* Whilst the last sheets of this paper are passing through the press, a very 

 interesting address by Dr. B, W. Eichardson, F.R.S., has been published 

 ('Nature,' Oct. 4, 1877), entitled "A Theory as to the Natural or Glandular 

 Origin of the Contagious Diseases." In it the author advances many strong 

 arguments against the germ theory ; he also propounds some interesting spe- 

 culations as to the mode of origin and action of the chemical principles, or 

 poisons, which constitute, as he believes, the "contagia" of the communi- 

 cable diseases. Some such views make a very fitting supplement to the doc- 

 trines which I have been here attempting to establish in regard to these 

 diseases ; only we must, as Dr. Richardson observes, seek gradually to put well- 

 proven facts in the places now occupied by mere speculations. In regard to the 

 practical aspects of the two opposite doctrines, Dr. Richardson makes some 

 very pertinent observations. " If the contagium vivum view be true," he says, 

 *' if the air around us is charged with invisible germs, which come from whence 

 we know not, which have unlimited power to fertilize, which need never cease 

 to fertilize and multiply, what hope is there for the skill of man to overcome 

 these hidden foes? Why on some occasion may not a plague spread over the 

 whole world, and destroy its life universally ? Whilst, on the other hand, if 

 the opposite notion be true, we have complete mastery over the diffusion of the 

 poisons of all the communicable diseases. We have but to keep steadily in 

 view that the producing and the reproducing power is in the affected body, and 

 we can, even with our present knowledge, all but completely limit the action 

 to the propagating power of that body — its power, I mean, of secretion and 

 diffusion of secretion." — Oct. 6, 1877. 



