98 INFLAMMATION, SUPPURATION, ETC. 



liable to decomposition, are preserved by a small 

 proportion of carbolic acid, and this being injected 

 hypodermically acts antiseptically in the blood, 

 and so assists nature in getting rid of the decom- 

 posing corpuscles." 



As Ambroise Pare said of the spells and magic 

 of his time, It is pleasant to know this way of 

 practising medicine. 



The older theories of disease had attributed 

 infection to the intemperature of the weather, the 

 powers of the air, or the work of the devil ; later, 

 men recognised that there must be a materies morbi, 

 something particular, transmissible, and perhaps 

 alive, but it was still a "nameless something." 

 Therefore, they overestimated the constitutional, 

 personal aspect of a case of infective disease, against 

 the plain evidence of case-to-case infection or inocu- 

 lation : they studied with infinite care and minute- 

 ness the weather, the environment, the family 

 history, the previous illnesses of the patient — every- 

 thing, except the immediate cause of the trouble. 

 But modern pathology, like Pasteur, says, Tenez, 

 voici sa figure. 



The antiseptic method was based on bacteri- 

 ology, resting as it did on the proof afforded by 

 Pasteur that putrefaction was caused by bacteria, 

 and not by the oxygen of the air, as had been pre- 

 viously believed. If any man would measure one 

 very small part of the lives that are saved by this 

 method, let him contrast the treatment of empyema 

 fifty years ago with its treatment now. If he would 

 measure the saving, not of lives but of limbs, let 



