378 EASTERN COUNTIES VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
atmospheric air but something that existed in the atmospheric air 
which produced the organisms observed; neither did they exist 
in the infusion itself from pre-existing germs or pre-existing 
organisms. Now, these germs may be quite innocent germs; 
they may exist in countless multitudes where contagious diseases 
are unknown as well as where they are rife; but if they are 
received into the system of an individual who is in an unhealthy 
state, whose secretions simulate the infusions at the time, they 
are capable of generating fever and inflammation. I beg you to 
distinctly understand me : these germs cannot produce smallpox, 
typhus fever, spotted typhus, cattle plague, glanders or farcy, they 
must not be confounded with the germs of infectious or conta¬ 
gious diseases; these latter germs can only emanate from 
organisms suffering under these special diseases. These may be 
transmitted by the breath of an affected person, or bv the exha¬ 
lation from the skin, or by the various excretions. The conta- 
gium of some contagious diseases is so subtle that the breath of 
the diseased organism contains numbers of potent particles of 
poison, and in this manner the very air of a considerable space, 
or even district, may become infected with the living diseased 
germinal matter. This material substance we call germs ; they 
pass from the diseased person to the healthy person’s organisms ; 
there they thrive and multiply and produce their kind as all 
living things do, and that nothing that does not live has ever 
been proved capable of doing. It is, therefore, living matter. 
This living poison may be introduced into our bodies by the air 
we breathe, by the water we drink, or by the pores of the skin. 
There are material poisons which do not change or increase in 
their virulence, such as arsenic and the like compounds ; but if 
the 100,000th part of a grain of the living poison is preserved, if 
even a single seed is allowed to rest undisturbed in some con¬ 
genial nest, although it may not germinate at once and may lie 
hid for months or years, yet at tbe end of that time, when the 
season or circumstances become favorable to its development, it 
may suddenly spring into life, begin to grow, and if unchecked, it 
will rapidly spread abroad and carry destruction and death 
through entire stables, and even whole districts. 
Some authors affirm that whenever material or mineral poisons 
are taken into the system in excess, viz. to the verge of destroy¬ 
ing life, in a constitution of great strength of vitality, its effects 
upon the system, although not fatal at the time, are such that 
sooner or later death must result from it; but if the poison be of 
a vegetable nature, or germs of disease, the dose or doses taken 
are to the verge of destroying life. If the constitution is strong 
and can live it out at the time, the constitution will rally and all 
traces of the poison or effects of the poison will in time entirely 
disappear ; but this is not always the case. As an example, Mr. 
Henry M. Stanley, the African explorer, is now laid up in Paris 
suffering from the effects of the attacks of malaria fever caught 
in the swamps of Africa years ago. He is yet thin and weak, and 
