ON THE REAL NATURE OF DISEASE GERMS. 
849 
their influence. Temperate living and regular exercise will carry 
the student safely through his labours, even should he now and 
then addict himself to “the wasting of the midnight oil.” 
The college is conveniently situated in regard to the 
breezy hills of Highgate, and those who complain of “ feel- 
ing cloudy,” will do well to recollect that a good draught of 
fresh air “unmixed with smoke from a chimney or a cigar” 
will blow the cobwebs from the “overwrought brain,” and 
give new life to every fibre of the body. 
All over the country there is work for scientific men, and 
the student of to-day will find himself in a few months 
engaged in difficult and obscure inquiries ; it is not, therefore, 
too much to expect that he will devote every moment of 
his pupilage to honest efforts to fit himself for the business 
of his future life. 
Extracts from British and Foreign Journals. 
ON THE REAL NATURE OF DISEASE GERMS. 
By Lionel S. Beale, F.R.S., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 
and Physician to King’s College Hospital. 
Before I proceed to describe the characters of the particles 
suspended in animal fluids, having virulent contagious pro- 
perties, it is very desirable to draw attention to the minute 
particles of bioplasm, which may be demonstrated in many 
specimens of simple exudation. From this subject we shall 
pass on to the consideration of other forms of “ exudation ” 
which possess specific disease-producing properties. We 
shall find that by a careful microscopical examination of 
fluids which experience has proved to us have contagious 
properties, facts of great interest are disclosed which have an 
important bearing on the question of the nature of the poison 
of contagious diseases. Many such fluids are clear like 
water, and quite as transparent when examined by the un- 
aided eye only. When w r e come to subject them to examina- 
tion with the aid even of the highest powders yet made, 
although solid particles are detected, and sometimes in great 
number, we observe nothing peculiar to these fluids alone — 
nothing which would enable us to form any conception of 
the wonderful properties they possess — nothing that would 
attract the attention of the chance observer, or excite the 
interest of any one who had not long and carefully studied 
