Essays on the floating-matter of the air in relation to putrefaction and infection / by John Tyndall.

  • John Tyndall
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays on the floating-matter of the air in relation to putrefaction and infection / by John Tyndall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    six months’ exposure to moteless air maintained at a temperature of 90° Fahr., when inoculated with full- grown active bacteria, fills itself in two days with organisms so sensitive as to be killed by a few minutes’ exposure to a temperature much below that of boiling water. But the extension of this result to the desic- cated germinal matter of the air is without warrant or justification. This is obvious without going beyond the argument itself. But we have gone far beyond the argument, and proved by multiplied experiment the alleged destruction of all living matter by the briefest exposure to the influence of boiling water to he a de- lusion. The whole logical edifice raised upon this basis falls therefore to the ground; and the argument that bacteria and their germs, being destroyed at 140°, must, if they appear after exposure to 212°, he spontaneously generated, is, I trust, silenced for ever. Through the precautions, variations, and repetitions observed and executed with the view of rendering its results secure, the separate vessels employed in this inquiry have mounted up in two years to nearly ten thousand. Besides the philosophic interest attaching to the problem of life’s origin, which will be always immense, there are the practical interests involved in the appli- cation of the doctrines here discussed to surgery and medicine. The antiseptic system, at which I have already glanced, illustrates the manner in which bene- ficent results of the gravest moment follow in the wake of clear theoretic insight. Surgery was once a noble art; it is now, as well, a noble science. Prior to the introduction of the antiseptic system, the thoughtful surgeon could not have failed to learn empirically that there was something in the air which often defeated the most consummate operative skill. That something the
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