gies were seemingly strengthened by the increased knowwhich gradually arose concerning the various parasitic dies to which man and the lower animals were liable. Ling in 1839, Sir Henry Holland says in his essay "On the othesis of Insect-life as a Cause of Disease," "The question hat weight we may attach to the opinion that certain diseases, especially some of epidemic and contagious kind, are ded from minute forms of animal life existing in the atmosphere er particular circumstances, and capable, by application to lining membranes or other parts, of acting as a virus on the an body." Now, the fact of the multiplication of the virus in the body was the peculiarity of these diseases, which, ve all others, caused such an hypothesis to be received with ur. Causes which are specific, and which seem capable of -multiplication-what can such agents be but living things of e kind, plant or animal? This mode of argument was with ny all-powerful. And when, after the discovery of the yeastnt by Schwann, in 1836, new doctrines concerning fermentan began to prevail, the views of those who believed in the ing nature of the specific causes of epidemic diseases were in rt strengthened. If all fermentations were initiated by the ency of living organisms, and the specific diseases were comrable to processes of fermentation, then how natural was it at many who were moreover influenced by the other analogies, ould be led to imagine that the specific causes of these diseases ere also living organisms. Only now, attention became dicted to the much lower organisms which are so 'frequently as ciated with fermentative and putrefactive changes, instead of to sects "minute beyond the reach of all sense."

Here, then, is the origin of what in modern times has been rmed "The Germ-Theory of Disease." Like homoeopathy nd phrenology, this theory carried with it a kind of simplicity nd attractiveness, which insured its acceptability to the minds f many. But, however, it seems to rest upon foundations only little more worthy of consideration than those upon which hese other theories are based. Now, owing to its influence, in combination with the more generally received doctrines concerning the origin of life, there has gradually grown up an unwillingness in the minds of many to believe that these contagious diseases can arise de novo. And this being one of those theories which tends to curb inquiry, and to check the possible growth of sanitary knowledge in certain highly important directions, it seems to me necessary to look with scrutinising care to its foundations, not only with the view to the advancement of medical science, but with the direct object of removing all checks which may exist to the growth of sanitary precautions against the origin of these most pestilential affections.

Let us see, then, how far the "theory" fulfils the conditions which all good theories do fulfil-how far it explains a great number of the phenomena in question, without being irrecon

cilable with others.

The advocates of the "germ-theory" have always rested their belief in it, in the main, because they considered that it offered a ready explanation of the increase of the virus of the contagious diseases within the body of the affected person. This increase they suppose is not otherwise to be explained. All other considerations brought forward in support of the theory are just as explicable by another supposition. Fully admitting that the occurrence of a process of organic self-reproduction would be a very adequate way of accounting for the increase of the infecting material, we must see whether this mere hypothesis can be reconciled with other characteristics of these affections. In the first place, it may be asked, whether such a process is actually known to constitute the essence of any general diseases. Because, if so, those in which it does occur, ought, in the event of the hypothesis being true, to present a close similarity to the diseases in which such a process is supposed to occur.

Now, there are certain general diseases which do undoubtedly depend upon the presence and multiplication of organisms in the blood and throughout the tissues generally. There is the epidemic and highly contagious distemper amongst cattle, known in this country by the name of the "blood," and which excites in man that most dangerous morbid condition called "malignant pustule.' The researches of M. Davaine* and others have revealed the fact that this disease is essentially dependent upon the presence and multiplication of living organisms, closely allied to Vibriones, in the blood of the animals affected, and that similar organisms are also locally most abundant in the contagiously incited "malignant pustule" of man. Unless this latter is

• See Comp Rend 1864 and 1865

destroyed in its early stages, the contained organisms spread throughout the body and the disease speedily proves fatal. Of late, moreover, attention has also been called to Pasteur's researches on the subject of the very fatal epidemic which raged for fifteen years amongst the silkworms of France. This affection, known by the name of pébrine, is dependent upon the presence and multiplication of peculiar corpuscular organisms, called Psorospermia, in all the tissues of the body. Both these general parasitic diseases are highly contagious; both are contagious by means of organisms; and in both the virus does increase by self-multiplication within the body of the animal affected. What more suggestive evidence could there be as to the truth of the "germ-theory," say its advocates, than is supplied by the phenomena of these two diseases? Undoubtedly the evidence is irrefragable as to its applicability to these particular maladies; but then comes the question whether they are comparable with the other affections to which the "germ-theory" is sought to be applied. And this question must decidedly be answered in the negative. These parasitic diseases are sharply distinguished from the others by the fact of their almost invariable fatality. Creatures or persons once affected in this way are, under ordinary circumstances, thenceforth on the road to more or less immediate death. Happily, however, no fatality of this kind is characteristic of even such highly contagious diseases as scarlet fever and smallpox, or any other of the maladies with which parasitic organisms cannot be shown to be associated. Doubtless there are other general parasitic diseases amongst animals. In almost all the specific diseases to which man is liable, however, I have invariably failed to discover any trace of organisms in the blood. The experience of many other observers has been similar to my own in this respect. But if living things were really present as causes of these maladies, then most assuredly ought they to conform to that fatal type which is almost inseparable from the notion of a general parasitic disease, and which we find exemplified by the course of pébrine, the "blood,” and “malignant pustule.”+ The fact then, that the general tendency in the acute specific diseases, is undoubtedly towards recovery rather than towards death, speaks strongly against the resemblance supposed to exist between them and the parasitic affections alluded to, and also against the hypothesis that they are dependent upon the presence of self-multiplying germs within the body. Such germs, when present, would be sure to go on increasing until they brought about the death of their host.

These considerations alone should suffice to inspire grave doubts as to the truth of the "germ-theory." And such doubts may be reinforced by many others. Thus, the several affections being distinct from one another, this theory demands a belief in the existence of about twenty different kinds of organisms never known in their mature condition, but whose presence as invisible, non-developing germs is constantly postulated, solely on the ground of the occurrence of certain effects supposed to be otherwise incapable of occurring. That, if existent, they are no mere ordinary germs of known organisms is obvious, because the presence of these has again and again been shown to be incapable of producing the diseases in question. Mr. Forster says, "There is not perhaps on the face of the earth a human creature who lives on coarser fare, or to a civilised people more disgusting, than a Kalmuck Tartar. Raw putrid fish or the flesh of carrion-horses, oxen, and camels--is the ordinary food of the Kalmucks, and they are more active and less susceptible to the inclemency of the weather than any race of men I have ever seen."§ It has, moreover, been frequently demonstrated, that the organisms of ordinary putrefactions may be introduced even into the blood of man and animals without the production of any of these specific diseases. Yet is the "Antiseptic System NATURE, 1870, No. 36, p. 181.

See paper by Dr. Wm. Budd in British Medical Journal, 1863.

1 See Med-Chirurg. Rev., 1854, vol. xiii., where the supposed connection of diseases with processes of putrefaction is ably considered by the late Dr. W. Alison.

The Bacteria which are sure to be abundant in such food cannot, therefore, be the much talked-of "disease germs." Such a diet is, of course, by no means recommended. Epidemic diseases are frequently most fatal when they once break out amongst a people whose diet is of this kind (see Dr. Carpenter, in Men. Chirurg. Rev., 1853, vol. xi. p. 173, and could probably only be borne in certain climates by persons who lead a very active life.

See, amongst others, Davaine in Compt. Rend, August 1864, and E. Semmer in Virchow's Archives, 1870. Dr. Lionel Beale is well aware of this fact, and he, accordingly, whilst adhering to the germ theory, promul gates it under a new form. He says (Monthly Micros. Jour., Oct. 1870 p. 205) Concerning the conditions under which these germs are produced, and of the manner in which the rapidly multiplying matter acquires ts new and marvellous specific powers, we have much to learn, but with

of treatment (ool as it may be, irrespective of the germtheory on which it has been based) pressed upon our attention on the assumption that the germs of putrefaction and the germs of disease are living organisms simi'ar in na ure. The strange persistency with which this view is advocated is not a little surprising, when it entails the obvious contraciction that germs which do, under all ordinary circumstances, | develop into well-known organic forms, should, when concerned in the production of the diseases in question, induce all the effects supposed to depend upon their prod gious growth and multiplication, and yet never develop, never become visible. And, whilst Bacteria and other organisms with which the unknown disease-germs are compared, flourish and reproduce in the much-vaunted, germ-killing, carbolised lotions; still carbolic acid continues to be recommended solely on account of its germ-killing powers, and the theory on which the practice is based is thought to derive support from the results obtained by the use of this agent. Surely no theory could be weaker on which to base a successful method of treatment; and if, as its distinguished originator says, its general acceptance is principally hindered by the “doubt of its fundamental principle," then I would deliberately say that the blame, if any, cannot fairly be said to lie with those "who have opposed the germ. theory of putrefaction." The "Antiseptic System" of treatment needs no support from a germ-theory; it can be surely and unassailably based upon the broader physico-chemical doctrines of Liebig.

66

The last blow, however, seems given to the "germ-theory" of disease, when we are told that the blood and the secretions in sheep-pox are not infective, though this disease is most closely allel to, and even more virulently contagious than, human small-pox. If gems had existed in this general disease, and their multiplication was the cause of it, then most assuredly would they have existed in the blood and in other fluids of the body; and yet, as Prof. Burdon Sanderson tells us, $"In sheep-pox all the di eised parts are infecting, while no result follows from the inoculati n either of the blood or of any of the secretions; the liquid expressed from the pulmonary nodules has been found by M. Chauveau to be extremely virulent--certainly not less so than the juice obtained from the pustules.' Now, although in other of these diseases the blood does undoubtedly exh bit infective properties, still the ascertained existence of even one exceptional case amongst maladies so contagious as sheep-pox, seems to be absolutely irreconcilable with the theory of the "germ-theory," more especially when this theory was started principally to explain the phenomena of such highly contagious diseases. ||

vegetable organisms the germs have nothing to do. They have originated in man's organism. Man himself has imposed the conditions favourable to their development. Man alone is responsible for their origin. Human intelligence, energy, and self-sacrifice may succeed in extirpating them, and may discover the means of preventing the origin of new forms not now in exisence This is undoubtedly a very much less objectionable form of the germ theory, though much additional evidence would be needed before we could accept the view that contagious diseases are due to the rapid multiplication of the contagious particles within the body of the creature affected. The non-contagiousness of the blood is as irreconcilable with this as with the other form of the germ theory.

* See "Modes of Origin of Lowest Organisms," 1871, p. 85. And in a recently published paper "On the Relative Powers of Various Substances in Preventing the Generation of Animalcules on the Development of the Germs," Dr. Dougall says: "If, as is alleged, germs are the source of putrefaction, then the strongest preventives must be the best antiseptics, and vice versa. Now, as seen in the table, carbolic acid occupies a very mediocre place as a preventive, therefore it is legitimate to conclude that it stands no higher as an antiseptic," p. 13.

British Medical Journal, August 26, 1871, p. 225.

1 These doctrines do not seem to have been adequately grasped by Prof. Lister. Fragments of organic matter are believed by Liebig to be capable of acting as ferments; he, however, holds that their potency is deteriorated by heat almost as much as are the qualities of Ly ng ferments. The experi ments with boiled fluids in bent-neck flasks, therefore, upon which Prof. Lister so strongly relies in proof of the germ-theory, prove absolutely nothing as between the two theories of fermentation of Liebig and of Pasteur. Amongst the atmospheric particles there are sure to be dead ferments in the form of mere organic fragments. Now the doubt that previously existed was, as to whether they could initiate fermentation and putrefaction, or whether the presence of living germs was absolutely essential. In the experiments with bent neck flasks, both fragments and germs must be simultaneously excluded or admitted to the fluids. Prof. Lister's readers might suppose that Liebig had no objection to his ferments being boiled, and that the issue lay between the relative efficiency of oxygen and living germs. (See Gerhardt's Chimie Organique, t. iv. p. 545.)

$Report On the Intimate Pathology of Contagion," in Twelfth Report of Medical Officer of Privy Council.

ZOOLOGICAL RESULTS OF THE 1870 Dredging EXPEDITION OF THE
YACHT NORNA" OFF THE COAST OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL BY
W. SAVILLE KENT, F.Z S.

PROF. BASTIAN ON THE GERM-THEORY.
BOOKS RECEIVED.

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455

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1871

RECENT UTTERANCES

HE Oracle has spoken. In fact several Oracles have spoken. Let us take them seriatim. From the lips two of the most enlightened members of the Cabinet - have had at last an authoritative expression of the sirability— nay more, of the absolute necessity of ientific education for the country at large. Addressg his constituents at Bradford on Monday the 2nd inst. a speech to which we have already alluded, on the casion of the opening of the new Mechanics' Institute r that town, Mr. W. E. Forster, the Minister for Educaon, as he ought to be styled, made use of the following nphatic language :-" The old grammar-school teaching as almost framed upon the advantage that Latin and reek well taught gave to the boys; now, we find that e boys cannot do without the use of more general knowedge than is given by Latin and Greek, that there must e a knowledge of modern languages. But there may be Iso a feeling that we ought to know something of the aily facts of life, and the rudiments of Science. There, gain, I speak from a sense of my own want, and I have often thought how much more useful I might have been at any rate, how much stronger I might have been-if had had given to me a scientific education, such as I hink we may now hope that our children will attain." And again: "We now believe that we have taken measures by which we may secure elementary education to all children of all classes in our borough, and throughout the country, and, consequently, those who attend this institution will have the foundation of a training that will enable them to fulfil the original idea of its promoters," that is, " to give mechanics scientific knowledge."

On the following day Lord Granville, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, when presiding at the opening of the Dover College (intended to provide, at a very moderate cost, a first-class English and classical education), took the opportunity to make the following pertinent remarks:-"Then there is the study of Science in its different departments. I believe this to be eminently wise, and a matter to which parents in the present day attach very great importance. I believe the results of this branch of education are of considerable consequence; for after all, a mere smattering of education is of very little use in any department, but a really scientific mode of studying different branches of Science is one of the best and most useful instruments of education you can use, I remember reading a very remarkable speech, with most of which I agree, delivered by Mr. John Stuart Mill, on the difficulties of a comprehensive education. He said the study of Science taught young men to think, while the study of Classics gave them the power of expressing their thoughts. I own I have thought there is some little fallacy in the distinction drawn between the education taught in these two departments. I believe it is almost impossible for a man to study the ancient languages without himself acquiring great habits of thought, and I daresay you have all had opportunities of hearing some of the most distinguished professors, some now dead and others living, who have conveyed their thoughts to their audiences in such singularly clear and perfectly eloquent language, that

VOL. IV.

I feel there is something in the study of Science which makes a man feel that in what he is talking about, he must eschew all redundant and irrelevant verbiage."

The significance of these outcomes is not to be mistaken, and Lord Granville's remarks are of none the less authority because he does not happen to be our Home Secretary. His knowledge of the state of education in some other European countries has doubtless made him all the more sensible to the lamentable defects of our own. Of the other leading members of the Cabinet, Mr. Gladstone is too far-seeing a man to oppose the manifest tendencies of the age, Mr. Lowe has shown himself ready to respond to every legitimate demand made on the public purse by the proper representatives of the wants of Science, and the Duke of Argyll is himself a writer on Science.

While we cannot but congratulate ourselves that our rulers are at length alive to the importance of making Science the base of all true education, a necessity we have so constantly and earnestly insisted on, we still cannot but inquire how it is that all this has been so long in making itself self-evident to our public men. In the same address from which we have already quoted, Mr. Forster pointed out that the original design of the founders of Mechanics' Institutes was to give a scientific education to the working classes; but that they soon found that there was an almost universally spread absolute ignorance of even the most elementary facts on which a scientific education could be based. And yet all these years have been allowed to pass, and it is only yesterday, as it were, that any serious attempt has been made to provide a scientific education for the working classes. We are even surprised to find that the first advances made by teachers of science in this direction are met by an eagerness and enthusiasm which will soon outstrip the limited means at command to satisfy its cravings. In the higher strata of society it is the same; wherever the elements of science, natural or physical, are taught by a competent teacher, they are absorbed by boys and girls, and grown-up men and women too, with a zeal seldom bestowed on their Latin or Mathematics; there is something in these studies which the human mind finds really to respond to its own instincts. If the next generation of Englishmen does not grow up with more than a smattering of the rudiments of science, it will be the fault of the present teachers of science themselves.

From men of high position but out of the Cabinet, who are clear-sighted enough to discern the wants of the age, we hear the same demands on every side. Sir J. Lubbock the other day, in addressing a meeting of working men at Liverpool, after delivering the prizes in connection with science classes, said that scientific men throughout the country unanimously regretted the manner in which the grants to elementary schools are distributed. Reading, writing, and arithmetic, although the foundations of education, are not education itself, and the schools will never be placed on a sound and satisfactory basis until they take a wider ground. And at the meeting of the Social Science Congress, held during the present week at Leeds, Mr. Joseph Payne, than whom no more practical authority could be found, read a paper on scientific teaching and the advantages of mental discipline for children, approving of the cultivation of the faculties of observation and experiment and direct training from nature. Science teach

BB

ing, and not literary teaching, he said, ought to be the basis of all other knowledge.

One of the best recent utterances on the relation of the State towards Science is contained in the address of Prof. Huxley, delivered at Birmingham on Monday last, as president of the Birmingham and Midland Institute. In this admirable discourse he spoke of the principles of governing, and the relation of the State to its members, in a manner which enables us to congratulate ourselves

that Prof. Huxley is no longer among the advocates of the limitation of State functions. He repudiated the idea of the functions of a Government being confined to those of a protective constabulary. Adopting the definition that the end of Government would be the good of mankind, he said he took it that the good of mankind meant the attainment by everyone of all the happiness which he could enjoy without diminishing the happiness of his fellow-men. The pursuits in which pleasure and happiness could be enjoyed by all, with detriment to none, were those which ought to be smiled upon by the State. If it were beyond the province of the State to interfere directly in commerce and the individual relations of men, it might safely foster these indirectly. He urged that it was the duty of Government to take the initiative in promoting the teaching of Science, leaving local energy, as soon as it could be evoked, to develop the work. The State should understand that local scientific institutions such as those at Birmingham, Manchester, and Newcastle-on-Tyne do not benefit the locality alone, but the nation at large. With regard to the effects of Government subsidies on private enterprise, Prof. Huxley clearly showed how baseless are the grounds of alarm on this head. There are those who maintain that the State has no right to do anything but protect its subjects from oppression, but even "accepting the proposition that the functions of the State might all be summed up in one great negative commandment, 'Thou shalt not allow any man to interfere with the liberty of any other man,' Prof. Huxley said he was unable to see that the consequence was any such restriction as its supporters implied. If his next door neighbour chose to have his drains in such a state as to create a poisonous atmosphere which he breathed at the risk of typhus and diphtheria, it was just as much a restriction on his just freedom to live as if his life was threatened with a pistol. If his neighbour were allowed to let his children go unvaccinated, he might just as well be allowed to leave strychnine lozenges about in the way of his (Prof. Huxley's) children. And if his neighbour brought up his children untaught and untrained to earn their living, he was doing his best to restrict his (the lecturer's) freedom by increasing the burden of taxation for the support of gaols and workhouses for which he had to pay."

There is nothing new in these utterances, nothing that was not obvious to thinking men years and years ago; but they are of the highest importance nevertheless, for we may now hope that their lead will be followed in our English fashion throughout the length and breadth of the land. It was wisely said not long ago, that one of the most certain ways to make the study of Science national

would be to make Science itself fashionable. This is true, and we may now hope that this task will for the future fall on Cabinet Ministers and the like, for scientific men who attempt it are apt to become martyrs to the good cause.

THE LAWS OF POPULATION

1. Population: its Laws of Increase. By Nathan Aller M.D. (Lowell, Mass., 1870.)

2. Physical Degeneracy. By the same. (New York: Ap pleton and Co., 1870.)

3. The Law of Human Increase. By the same. DR. NATHAN ALLEN, in three pamphlets, of which

the titles are given above, discusses different aspects of a question of grave importance to American society. and indirectly to other societies also-namely, the comparative infecundity of that part of the population of the United States described as "native Americans." This fact, which seems pretty generally recognised, first came before Dr. Allen as a matter of personal observation, and he gives us more precise information from census returns. It appears that in the State of Vermont, for an stance, the birth-rate even of the whole population, including the foreign element, is but three-fifths of what it is in England, while that of the strictly American population taken alone is estimated at only one-half of the English standard. This fact is the more remarkable, since, as Dr. Allen points out, "the comparison is between a people occupying the healthiest part of New England, engaged principally in agricultural pursuits, scattered in settlement, and a population situated as that of England is, living mostly in cities and thickly settled places, as well as composed largely of the extremes in society." Nor was it always so with the same race; for a hundred years ago the number of children under fifteen years of age was relatively to the adult population, double what it is now. A3 regards the causes of this difference, Dr. Allen does not assign more than a secondary place either to emigration westward or to prudential considerations. He himself regards the physical weakness of American women, their inattention to the rules of health, and the over-straining of their nervous system, as the chief determining causes of the small number of children in a family. We have the usual complaints of tight-lacing, low dresses, in sufficient exercise, and so on, which have been urged by physical moralists in all countries; but more special evils are pointed out in "the excessive use of fine flour bread," and the overstrained intellectual education of girls. To the latter cause Mr. Herbert Spencer has already ascribed the same consequences. At all events the fact of general physical weakness in American women seems to be made out, and is curiously illustrated from one point of view by the estimate of a manufacturer, that more than seven million feeding bottles are annually sold in the United States. So many mothers are unable to nourish their offspring!

Dr. Allen further ventures on a general theory of popu lation, which may be stated broadly thus:-That fecundity depends upon the perfect development or harmony of all the organs of the body. The principle thus stated is very vague, and the author cannot be called successful in his attempt to give it precision; but the subject is too large for discussion here. The practical counsels which he addresses to his countrywomen are valuable and judicious, bat so long as large families are regarded with disfavour, advice in this direction seems little likely to meet with acceptance More promising are his suggestions as to the origin o this sentiment. If it be chiefly due, as he implics, to