Volume 1

Health lectures for the people.

Date:
1883-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health lectures for the people. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    432/896 (page 180)
    poison of these diseases, as in the case of small-pox, doubtless consists of infinitely minute bodies, which float about in the air, and which, when introduced into the bodies of unprotected indi- viduals, lead to the development of these diseases. Now it is in the highest degree probable that we may succeed in rendering these poisons practically innocuous. We are led to believe this by knowing what has already been done in the case of a disease which bears a close analogy to them. There is a very deadly malady to which some of the lower animals are subject, called splenic fever. It has been known for some time that in the blood of animals dying of this disease there are very minute foreign bodies of a vegetable nature which have the power of almost indefinite multiplication. It was then shown that these bodies could be cultivated in fluids outside the body, and that they formed germs which could remain long inactive, but which, under suitable conditions, could grow and multiply. Then fol- lowed the brilliant discovery that by cultivation this fungus could be so modified that when innoculated into animals it only produced a mild attack of the disease, but that this protected the animals from subsequent attacks, even when exposed to the poison in its most malignant forms. There can, I think, be little doubt that by means of experiment it will yet be shown that the poison of measles and scarlet fever may be modified in a similar manner, and that, as in the case of small-pox, these diseases may be deprived of the greater part of their malignancy. In bringing this lecture to a conclusion, I have only a single remark to make. Of late years the advances of medicine have been very rapid in every one of its departments, and everything leads us to believe that they will be still more rapid in the future. We can never expect to get rid of disease altogether, for suscepti- bility to disease is a law of our nature. It cannot be expected that medicine shall ever take rank with the exact sciences, for where we have to deal with the phenomena of life, vitality intro- duces a disturbing element, which we can never expect to get the better of; but we may safely look forward to a period when we shall be enabled to undertake a more equal struggle with disease, —a period when the success of the physician shall be more nearly than at present on a level with his good intentions.