LANCASHIRE VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 519 
resolution, or one or other of the more unfortunate terminations following 
the solution of continuity in the osseous system ; and whilst the intimate 
relation existing between cause and effect can be ascertained and demon¬ 
strated by experimental research in branches of science dealing with the 
inanimate, there are some facts in connection with ours that humanity 
forbids the same prodigality of experiment, and whilst some amount of 
vivisection is undoubtedly justifiable, we forget that any new facts now 
proven in the daily clinic is a step towards the solution of some 
mystery, and it is to be feared that often when we stumble across those 
gems, by not noting them they drift back into the dark sea of the 
unknown. 
Abundant proof is to hand that for centuries man has been aware of 
the fact that certain diseases could be conveyed from one system to 
another in some mysterious way, but without the slighest idea, save and 
except such as they obtained by conjecture, as to what this potent but 
baneful agent could be that carried death and disease over the land. 
During the last twenty years Pasteur’s researches with regard to the 
process of fermentation and putrefaction have given rise to what is 
commonly known as the germ theory of disease. It is not necessary to 
discuss the question in extenso as to whether all our infectious diseases are 
due to germs, but I wish you to note carefully the similarity in the action 
of fermentation and some diseases. This is beautifully illustrated by 
experiments conducted by Dr. Roberts, of Manchester. In one he filled 
two pint bottles with saccharine wine, and inserted a delicate thermo¬ 
meter in each, a was inoculated with a minute quantity of yeast, but 
nothing was added to b. Both bottles were placed in a warm room, 
70° F. In order to get a correct standard for temperature another 
bottle (c) with thermometer was placed besides them. The bottles were 
carefully swathed in cotton wadding to obviate the change in tem¬ 
perature as much as possible. For twelve hours no change took place, 
but at the end of this time a began to ferment with rise of temperature. 
On the second day it was actively fermenting, and its temperature was 
2*7° above b and c. This disturbance continued for five days, the 
temperature ranging from 2° to 3° above the companion bottles. The 
disturbance then subsided and the temperature fell to an equality with 
b and c, and the sediment of yeast settled at the bottom. In the mean¬ 
while b showed little alteration, but fermentation set in on the sixth day, 
following a similar course to a. Dr. Roberts says this fever in a bottle 
resembled smallpox in the following points :—Inoculation period, incu¬ 
bation, disturbance and elevation of temperature, succeeded by a subsi¬ 
dence of the disturbance, and a return to the normal state. Multiplica¬ 
tion of infective material, and after conclusion liquid protected from 
infection by same contagium. Second part shows fermentation can be 
produced either by direct inoculation or fortuitous infection through the 
atmosphere. The comparison fails, however, in one point; a chemical 
change takes place in one and not the other. Sugar is changed into 
alcohol and carbonic acid; whilst, so far as we know, no chemical change 
takes place in the blood and tissues in smallpox. Putrefaction and 
certain diseased action are even more intimately allied than fermentation 
and fever. I have in this bottle a small aquarium of my own cultivating, 
A piece of fresh muscle was placed in a jar, and after being covered with 
water it is allowed to stand exposed in a warm atmosphere for several 
days. Upon examining a drop of this liquid under the microscope I 
find that there are thousands of living moving specks visible; these are 
termed “Bacteria.” We have here induced the process of putrefaction, 
one of the essentials to which is the presence of Bacteria. You say how 
