396 JOURNAL OF TOE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
"GERM THEORY." 
ABSTRACT OF MR. GEORGE JACKSON'S PAPER. 
(Read March 13th, 1873.) 
Professor Lister, of Edinburgh, in his address on Surgery, 
delivered in this town in the autumn of 1871, said that he con- 
sidered the Antiseptic treatment of wounds, &c, to he based on 
the Germ Theory. That he held that the germs of disease aud 
putrefaction were floating in the atmosphere, and that the object of 
the Antiseptic treatment was to exclude and destroy them. It is, 
however, quite possible, according to Dr. Bastian, to explain the 
good results of Professor Lister's treatment on chemico-physical 
grounds, more especially on the physical theory of fermentation. 
Aristotle believed in the spontaneous origin of eels and other 
fish out of river mud, and that animals might proceed from 
vegetables. Harvey appears to have thought that all life proceeded 
from a vegetative germ, generally speaking, yet that this germ 
need not necessarily proceed from a living parent. Redi, an 
Italian, was the first who combated the then generally received 
opinion ; but he rather showed that particular instances, such as 
that maggots did not generate in decayed matter, " de novo" but 
were the product of eggs laid by flies, than to disprove the general 
doctrine. 
Both sides have had their advocates up to the present time. 
M. Pasteurs, Professor Huxley, Professor Lister, and others, up- 
holding the Germ Theory ; Professor Huxley, with certain reserva- 
tions, M. Pouchet, and Dr. Bastian, believing that it is quite 
possible for living organisms of a low type to originate without 
there being any previously existing germ. M. Pouchet believed 
that the vegetable infusions with which he experimented were 
possessed with some special vital force, and that organized beings 
were animated by forces which are in no way reducible to physical 
and chemical forces. Dr. Bastian goes further than this, and, 
under the title of Archebiosis, describes how living matter appears 
