ANALYSIS OF CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 371 
will have none] the less esteem and respect for the results 
acquired, and you will certainly be moved by the desire to 
contribute towards their increase. Though a definite, pre¬ 
cise, and absolute conclusion may not be our aim, our discus¬ 
sion will be none the less interesting. A particular attraction 
belongs to those subjects which do not manifest all their 
aspects equally, and which are yet open to efforts made by 
science to thoroughly master them. You will be more in¬ 
terested in assisting at the exhibition of these efforts, than if 
you had no more to do than to register the result. When 
nothing remains to hide the truth, the questions are resolved. 
But a question answered is only a battle gained, the tidings 
of which will be proclaimed hereafter. A question being re¬ 
solved is a battle in which we assist, and whose fortunes we 
follow; it is a struggle in which the mind of the spectator— 
I mean he who listens—may take the same part as the mind 
of the actor—he, I mean, who speaks. And the interest 
that this struggle inspires, the passion that animates it, are 
otherwise as grand and noble as the savage and sanguinary 
emotions of the battle field. Is it not, in fact, a contention 
for the welfare, for the existence even, of humanity ? 
And then, lastly, we do not interdict ourselves, in venturing 
to-day on the necessarily incomplete sketch that we are about 
to undertake, to return at a later period to our first idea. 
When this general outline is terminated, w r e shall place on 
more solid and better known ground, certain particular facts. 
I speak of tuberculosis, glanders, variola, vaccinia, &c. And, 
if time and strength permit us at a later period to utilise the 
results obtained in this study of each virulent malady consi¬ 
dered in a particular manner, so that we may again refer to 
the theory of virulency, our present tentative will not 
have been useless; but will have proved a valuable prepara¬ 
tion Let us launch, then, with this hope, into our thorny 
enterprise. 
THE DOMAIN OE VIRULENT MALADIES. 
At the very outset we will enter into the list with one of 
those thousand obstacles that we are called upon to encounter 
in this premature research on the theory of virulence. What 
is a virulent malady ? What kind of maladies are they w hich 
deserve this name? Here, then, are two points on which it 
is important to be understood before commencing our study. 
It is necessary that the subject of the study should be well 
defined. If, by a definition too exact and an enumeration 
much too extensive, we enter in the list of virulent maladies 
