Microbes in fermentation, putrefaction, and disease / by Charles Cameron.

Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Microbes in fermentation, putrefaction, and disease / by Charles Cameron. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    Now, we know that the living body is made up of living cells, and, when a ferment is introduced into it, then a con- test for existence at once arises between them and it. Had Marix in the experiment I have referred to made use of yeast enfeebled by the treatment just described, I have no doubt he would have found that he could have injected much larger doses than he did without fatal results. In the struggle for life the weakened yeast would have gone to the wall, just as the fresh yeast did when an insufficient dose Avas set to work against the combined forces of all the blood globules and other cells of the body. Noav, this is precisely AA’hat did occur Avhen the microbe of foAvl cholera, enfeebled by prolonged starvation in oxygen, Avas intro- duced into the circulation of healthy foAvls. The energy of the organic cell-life within them was sufficient to achieve O over it a victory more and more easy, precisely as it Avas less or more enfeebled—exactly as, AArhen infected in the ordinary Avay, fowls die or recover according as their natural forces are or are not sufficiently strong to overcome the dose of the microbe Avkick has introduced itself into then’ system. And as it is found under circumstances of ordinary infection that the system of the animal Avhicli recovers has undergone some change Avliich renders it unapt to contract the disease a second time, so in those which recovered from the attenuated virus it Avas found that a like effect had been produced. Extending his researches to the microbe of splenic fever, Pasteur discovered that a similar course of treatment in its case produced similar results. It, too, became enfeebled or attenuated, but Avrith much greater rapidity, and Avlien thus attenuated its inoculation upon sheep or cattle produced precisely analogous effects. But in the case of this microbe there is an important difference, Avith greatly augments the lacility with Avliich avc can avail ourselves of its attenuated iorrn as a protective against the disease, As I have said,