Foot-and- Mouth Disease : its History and Teachings. 
13 
A very instructive paper on " The Germ Theory of Disease " * 
was read before the Irish Central Veterinary Medical Society in 
1883, by Mr. James Lambert, F.R.C.V.S., Inspecting Vete- 
rinary Surgeon for Ireland, Army Veterinary Department. Mr. 
Lambert expressed his belief " that every communicable, or 
transmissible, or contagious, or infectious, or specific disease 
depends on living organisms for its production and develop- 
ment." In his " Outlines of the Science and Practice of 
Medicine," Dr. Aitken gives the following definition : — " The 
germ theory holds that each specific disease has a specific 
poison-germ, which lives, grows, and has a being specifically 
distinct from each and all other germs." 
It appears that under the English term " germs," and the 
continental term " microbes," the active agents in ferments 
and in disease production and conyeyance, known as " bacteria," 
include various forms, as the bacillus, micrococcus, diplococcus, 
vibrio, spirillum, and others ; and that while bacteria 
themselves are easily killed by heat, even at so low a tempe- 
rature as 140° Fahr., their spores or seeds are very tenacious 
of life. Indeed, some may be boiled for two or three hours, 
dried, and preserved in a dry condition for months, yet will 
revive under suitable conditions. Further, it is established 
that forage, straw, hay, clothing, birds, insects, and other objects 
can convey the eruptive fever. That the germs of foot-and- 
mouth disease, micrococci, may be conveyed from a diseased 
animal to another at a long dijtance has been demonstrated ; 
but it seems to remain a debatable point whether the infection 
can be carried in the air, even for a short distance. The con- 
clusion some scientific men have arrived at is that the dura- 
tion of infective power in the virus does not, as a rule, last 
for many days ; but occasional instances have been brought to 
notice in which the contagion has revived (whether preserved 
in a quiescent state in the spore condition or not) so as to pre- 
sent all the characteristics of an entirely new outbreak, and this 
a very long period after the disease has existed actively. Thus, 
in " Sanitary Science and Police," by Professor George Fleming, 
it is stated " that troughs which had been lying for four months 
exposed in the fields, but which had before been used by diseased 
animals, gave foot-and-mouth disease." In the same work, 
another instance is related : — " A farmer owned two farms in 
an out-of-the-way place, and some distance from each other. On 
one farm foot-and-mouth disease had prevailed severely ; the 
other farm was free from it. The disease disappeared from the 
infected farm, and nothing more was seen of it for five months, 
* Published by Baillicrc, Tindall, and Cox, King William Street, Strand, 
London. 
