404 
TWENTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING 
We will next receive tlie report of the Committee on Diseases. 
Dr. A. W. Clement submitted the report of the Committee on 
Diseases as follows: 
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON DISEASES. 
By A. W. Clement, Chairman. 
During the past year a good deal has been published upon the investigation 
of infectious diseases. Much of the work shows evidence of thoroughness, while 
some of it is open to severe criticism. 
The duties of such a committee as this are not very well defined, but it 
seems to us that a passing in review of some of the work which has been brought 
more prominently before the profession, if discussed in an impartial manner, 
may be of as much importance as the devotion of more energy to the collection 
of statistics. » 
The investigation of the infectious diseases is a slow and oftentimes tedious 
process. The observer must work methodically, and oftentimes under very great 
disadvantages. 
The work has become so systematized, and so much is being done in this 
line, that to be hampered by the practical duties of life means, too often, failure 
in both, to him who would combine clinical medicine with the study of the 
etiology of disease. 
The busy practitioner claims from the laboratory specialist, and his claim is a 
just one, that such accurate information shall be given him of the cause of dis¬ 
ease, and the best remedies to combat such diseases, as are recognized by the more 
or less scientific classification of clinical medicine. The public claim from the 
specialist such information as will enable them, if possible, to guard against or 
to control such diseases as affect a large number of individuals at one time. 
Such infontiation, usually termed practical, is too often the only information 
thought to be of any value by the public, and, unfortunately, by a large number 
of the members of our profession. We are too apt to forget that the only 
practical information is that which is based upon well understood scientific 
facts—facts which are the result of patient observation—and the accurate word¬ 
ing of them. 
It is not for one moment to be supposed that there are any members of this 
Association present who are not fully in accord with the germ theory of infec¬ 
tious and miasmatic diseases, and that there is no possibility of the spontaneous 
origin of this class of diseases. A case of contagious pleuro-pneumonia must be 
preceded by a case of contagious pleuro-pneumonia. The same is true of tuber¬ 
culosis, Texas fever, etc , etc. Now, the term germ must not be confounded 
with the term bacteria, for it has been very well demonstrated that other organ¬ 
isms than bacteria are capable of producing disease. 
A well-established example of infection b}^ organisms of a non-bacterial 
type is malaria in man, and, according to some authorities, Texas fever in cat¬ 
tle. Such diseases as the above are classed as miasmatic diseases; i. e., diseases 
in which the infecting agent requires a part of its development to take place 
outside of the body, in contra-distinction to those dieases due to bacterial infec- 
