i882.j 
Latest Conquest. 
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“ In this mass of epithelial debris the minute bodies of the 
microzymes are set embalmed, or buried, as it were, in the 
ruins they have produced.” Mr. Thomson justly calls at- 
tention to the analogy between this sentence and the following 
passage from a later work of Dr. Koch, the head of the 
German sanitary department. This eminent authority 
writes : — “ It is in the highest degree impressive to observe 
in the centre of the tubercle-cell the minute organism which 
had created it.” 
Mr. Thomson also showed in his first work that the occa- 
sional aggravations of the fever, cough, and other symptoms 
of consumption, are due to the development of a fresh crop 
or generation of the parasitic germs. 
These ideas of the authors have been since abundantly 
verified by observation and — if in these good days we may 
venture to speak of such a thing — by direct experiment upon 
animals. Inoculation with tubercular matter has produced 
tubercular disease. The attention of the faculty and of the 
public being thus turned in the right direction, evidence of 
the infectious nature of consumption became multiplied. 
The author gives some very striking cases. Here we find, 
for instance, that a strong robust man marries a “ delicate ” 
(we hate the word) wife, who soon died of phthisis. The 
man soon fell off in health, and is now in the second stage 
of acute consumption. An aCtive healthy young man leaves 
Melbourne for a holiday trip to the old country. On his 
return voyage he occupies a narrow cabin with a phthisical 
invalid in aCtive disease. Not long after returning home he 
too was attacked. But for further cases we must refer to 
the author’s work. 
It is a trite saying that a true theory may soon be known 
by the ease with which it lends itself to faCts. This is emi- 
nently the case with Mr. Thomson’s views. Consumption 
is always said to be most fatal among persons who live, 
work, or sleep in narrow confined rooms. If it is infectious 
this is precisely what we should expeCt. Such persons will 
be far more likely to inhale the deadly matter than if their 
occupation were in the open air. 
Again, phthisis is hereditary, and runs in families. True, 
and what is more probable than that the child should 
receive the infection from its mother, and the sister from the 
brother ? 
Are we justified in regarding the discovery of Mr. Thom- 
son as a great triumph, sufficient in itself to demand a 
retractation of the rash censures which have been uttered 
against medical science ? Emphatically, yes ! Knowing 
