Evidences of the communicability of consumption.

  • Heron, G. A. (George Allan), 1845-1915.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Evidences of the communicability of consumption. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    based upon experiment. On the other hand, the objections hitherto advanced against it have no foundation in evidence based upon experiments, which have received recognition from competent authorities. Probably no research of its kind ever had, in a comparatively short time, so much corrobo- ration from work, more or less reliable, done in all quarters of the world. That corroborative work has, to a great extent, been accepted as correct by a very large majority of men whose opinions, on such sub- jects, are entitled to our best consideration. No doubt, the bulk of the medical profession to-day believe that tubercular disease is caused by a living organism, and that that organism is Koch's bacillus of tubercle. There is not, however, wanting proof of the fact, that there are still those who do not believe either of those propositions. Also, there is prevalent^ in certain quarters, a feeling that it can still be truly said of Koch's work on tuberculosis, that it is not yet proved to be correct. Again, there are others who believe it, but who, in their acts and words, do not seem to attach to it any considerable importance. These men appear to regard the work rather as a scientific curiosity, than as a matter full of much practical importance in relation to the question of why from one-fifth to one-seventh of the world's known death-rate is due to tubercular disease. It may be well to give here an example of those expressions of opinion which, to say the least of them, though not plainly avowing disbelief in Koch's teaching concerning tuberculosis, certainly do not tend to encourage its acceptance. In the Harveian Oration of 1889, Dr. James E. Pollock