380 EASTERN COUNTIES VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
sphere for a few hours, it will become peopled with numerous 
low organisms. These are Bacteria; they are never produced 
spontaneously, but originate invariably from germs in the sur¬ 
rounding media. They appear in the form of spiral rods, which 
elongate rapidly; they are then observed to break in segments; 
each segment becomes a living organism. There are also nume¬ 
rous offshoots, which are called spores; they drop off, and are 
each of them organisms. They have each the power of propaga¬ 
tion, and are endowed with wonderful activity ; but if you take 
the same infusion or wet dead animal or vegetable matter at the 
same temperature and expose it to air carefully filtered, the aereal 
dust and germs having been carefully excluded, and the experi¬ 
ment conducted properly, you may allow such air to be in contact 
with this infusion or other matter for days, weeks, or months, 
but no such phenomena will take place—not a single living 
organism will be developed—showing that the germs in the air 
have been kept back by the filter, and that no other element of 
the air or principle exists that has the power of producing orga¬ 
nisms. This totally disproves the spontaneous generation theory 
but their experiments prove more than this: they prove most 
conclusively that no ferment, decomposition, or putrefaction can 
take place without the presence of these low organisms, yea, 
these experiments go still further: they show that there exists a 
strong analogy, if not positive identity, between fermentation 
and several fevers. It is shown that they both obey the same 
laws exactly. There are certain stages which each have to pass 
through, viz. a certain period of incubation, then a period of 
active fermentation, and then a period of subsidence; nay, 
further still, it is shown that certain infectious diseases are de¬ 
pendent upon specific organisms, if septic bacteria are the cause 
of septicaemia, if the spirilli are the cause of relapsing fever, if 
the Bacillus anthrax is the cause of splenic fever, the inference 
is almost irresistible that other analogous organisms are the 
cause of other infective inflammations and other specific fevers. 
It is w r ell known that cattle plague can only be produced by 
cattle-plague germs ; the same holds good of glanders, smallpox, 
typhus fever, &c. It is known that the essential nature of 
zymotic diseases is fermentation, and all true fermentation is 
caused by the development of organisms. Alcoholic fermentation 
is caused by the yeast plant; this is simply a fungus, or a micro¬ 
scopic organism. It is capable of self-multiplication and endowed 
with activity, the same as other Bacteria. I may here remark 
that physiologists have not yet satisfactorily determined whether 
Bacteria is an animal or a vegetable existence, but whichever 
kingdom they belong to, they serve to initiate the changes in 
question are derived from a multitudinous army of omnipresent 
atmospheric germinal particles, which would seem to be always 
ready in number and in kind for every emergency. Thus it 
naturally follows if we can only exclude these special organisms 
we at once banish all fevers and inflammations which are depen- 
