528 
Editorials. 
(Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
1  November,  1903. 
and  enduring,  fitted  to  maintain  a  firm  hold;  self-adjusted,  grave, 
never  swerving  from  the  mean,  and  correct,  fitted  to  command 
reverence ;  accomplished,  distinctive,  concentrative,  and  searching, 
fitted  to  exercise  discrimination." 
Need  we  wonder  then  that  a  monument  has  been  erected  over 
the  grave  of  our  friend  in  Woodlawn  Cemetery  and  that  a  bronze 
tablet  has  been  unveiled  in  his  memory  in  the  College  of  Pharmacy 
of  the  City  of  New  York,  and  that  other  memorials  of  him  are  in 
contemplation  ? 
THE  DISSEMINATION  OF  PATHOGENIC  MICRO-ORGANISMS. 
When'  we  consider  the  large  number  of  abstracts  of  scientific 
papers  on  bacteriological  subjects  which  appear  not  only  in  scientific 
and  professional  journals,  but  also  in  the  newspapers,  it  seems 
amazing  that  the  manner  in  which  micro-organisms  may  be  trans- 
ported should  be  so  little  thought  of,  much  less  heeded,  by  the  more 
intelligent,  or  even  by  those  who  are  specially  educated. 
It  is  generally  known  that,  with  few  exceptions,  man,  in  view  of 
his  multitudinous  activities,  is  the  great  distributing  agent  of  disease 
germs.  In  some  instances  flies,  mosquitoes,  and  even  mice  and  rats 
are  the  direct  carriers  of  pathogenic  micro-organisms,  and  it  is  also 
conceded  that  they  may  be  transmitted  to  man  through  the  agency 
of  food  products,  such  as  milk,  oysters,  certain  vegetables,  etc. 
Tuberculosis,  diphtheria,  scarlet  fever,  chicken-pox,  small-pox,  etc., 
are  diseases  that  are  almost  entirely  disseminated  by  man  himself. 
No  less  an  authority  than  Pettenkofer  enunciated  a  truth  quite  early 
in  the  study  of  pathogenic  micro-organisms  that  is  worth  remem- 
bering to-day:  It  is  that  "human  intercourse  will  never  be  made 
germ-proof." 
Nevertheless,  it  is  highly  important  for  the  apothecary  and  phy- 
sician to  bear  in  mind  the  fact  that  inasmuch  as  they  are  so  frequently 
in  contact  with  the  sick  and  diseased,  too  much  care  cannot  be 
exercised  to  prevent  them  from  becoming  the  agents  whereby  dis- 
ease germs  are  disseminated.  This  might  at  first  appear  to  be  a 
subject  too  trite  for  consideration,  but  the  still  existing  carelessness 
in  regard  to  the  simplest  rules  to  be  observed  in  the  care  of  the 
sick  in  their  relation  to  others,  is  ample  warrant  for  calling  attention 
to  it. 
That  the  clinical  thermometer  is  more  often  a  germ  carrier  than 
