On bacillary consumption : its nature and treatment in the true first stage / by Horace Dobell.

  • Dobell, Horace, 1828-1917.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On bacillary consumption : its nature and treatment in the true first stage / by Horace Dobell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and at the bedside. A mass of accurate observations has been accumulated, wliich is astonishing when we consider that it was only in 1882 that the discovery of the tubercle-bacillus was announced. This ghastly denizen of our microscopic world, al- though so recently unveiled, is no new comer. We find that our forefathers pickled it unconsciously, and put it away in their bottled specimens of Tubercle to be found in our museums. It was as busy at its secret work then as now; and, therefore, as I have said, all clinical and patho- logical observations truthfully made and recorded, in whatever day this was done, relate as much to the work of the bacillus as do those made yesterday—so far as the means of observation and record of each day have been equal to the task. It is the duty of the investigators of to-day, as it will be the duty of those yet to come, and as it has been the duty of the investigators of the past, truthfully, cir- cumspectly, candidly, and I will add reverently, to seek to find out the exact place which each newly dis- covered element has hitherto secretly filled in the great histogenetic puzzle of metabolism. We are all too apt, especially in the fervour of youth, to think that each newly-found wonder must upset all that went before ! But the more sedate wisdom of ex- perience teaches us that this is not so—fortunately in- deed that it is not so, for otherwise the foundations of human knowledge would be as shifting as the sands of the sea. The plan of the great puzzle is the same, though each new cycle of scrutinizers may find that its elements are again and again divisible. The question now before us is no longer whether there is a specific bacillus tuberculosis ? but what is the place