The history of infection / by Arnold C. Klebs.

  • Arnold Klebs
Date:
[1917]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of infection / by Arnold C. Klebs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    under-estimate the absolute value of our methods and achievements. In the wider realm, just as in individual life, an insidious dwelling on the past may lead to paralyz- ing speculation, self-depreciation and hesi- tation. Here as there, such tendencies must be discountenanced. But, on the other hand, it can not be denied that the taste for self- exaltation, rampant to no small extent, merits equal attention, as it may easily lead to overindulgence and mental indigestion. Viewed with this general proviso it may perhaps not be unprofitable to picture the impressions a future historian might gather from a perusal of our bulky litera- ture. Would he see that the elaboration of the doctrine of the specificity of cause and effect in infectious diseases, which “‘de tout Ie temps toutes langues ont dit” as Bret- toneau put it, already in 1855, has led us to a deeper and more correct comprehension of these diseases? May he not conclude that we have not drawn from it the full logical consequences, that we have persist- ently disregarded our negative findings and, in overestimating the importance of the positive ones have come to a sterile gener- alization of contagionism? Will he admire with Sticker the courage of Pettenkofer when he insisted, in his famous cholera doctrine, less on what he had determined and knew, than on what he did not know and what needed to be brought out? Or, will he brand him, with Liebermeister, as ‘a subtle and sometimes humorous dialec- ticlan,” notwithstanding the solid results obtained as a consequence of Pettenkofer’s and others’ sanitary reforms? It is worthy of serious reflection whether the day is not likely to come when those ef- forts now occupying the center of the scienti- fic stage, that is, the search after the specific microorganism, its minute identification by complex experimentation and the prophy- Jactic and therapeutic application derived therefrom, will be relegated to a less con- spicuous place. We admit contributory causes, but by their very subordination we show how difficult it is for us to see in them anything but unimportant influences. And we forget that it is only the obviousness of one factor and the lacking clearness of the other which determine the artificial subor- dination. Pettenkofer’s x we have found but the equally important y and z have yet to be supplied in the etiologic formula. Shall we desist from this deeper etiologic search because of intrinsic difficulties? The reserved position of Virchow and Cohn- heim toward it will be recalled. To them etiology seemed too vast a subject, involv- ing too many different factors and techni- cal methods which could not all be fitted into one scientific garment. Hence they per- sisted mm observational and descriptive methods. Koch and his school of technical artists, without any such restraint but also without the broad outlook of their prede- cessors, were heralded as the founders of a new medicme. Their historian, Abel, de- scribes the final trrumph in these eloquent words: “‘Laboriously, slowly and late, but at last with certainty, the pure contagionis- tic theory has attained to the sole rulership in science.’ All this m barely forty-five years and based almost entirely on techni- cal and instrumental improvements. The “sole ruler” 1s difficult to please, a failure to solve some particular problem is invari- ably put to faulty or madequate technic, never to a wrong direction of effort, and the object of research, may it be the infecting organism or Its carrier, must remain unal- terably the same. We look down upon the medieval scholar who attempted the solu- tion of similar problems by syllogistic struc- tures of thought based upon insufficient facts. We have undoubtedly more facts, but can we prove their sufficiency by sub- tleties of experimental research, so often unrelated to actual exigencies? Multiple facts brought out by ductive research do not combine, as Francis Bacon expected they would, infallibly leading to really useful gen-
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