Micro-organisms and disease : an introduction into the study of specific micro-organisms / by E. Klein.

  • Klein, E. (Edward), 1844-1925.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Micro-organisms and disease : an introduction into the study of specific micro-organisms / by E. Klein. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    MICRO-ORGANISMS AND DISEASE. INTKODUCTION, The relation of micro-organisms to the infectious diseases is admitted to be very intimate ; and although it may not be quite so universal as some are inclined to assume, it is never- theless definitely proved to exist as regards some of the infectious maladies affecting man and brutes. In order to pass in review all the ascertained facts and observations in this vast and constantly-gi-owing field of pathology, and to apjjreciate and to assign their true value to the many observations bearing on this relation of micro-organisms to disease, it is necessary that the reader, and still more the worker in this field, should be enabled to criticise the observations and facts brought forward by the numerous ■writers on the subject, for otherwise he would probably take as proved what has really not passed beyond the stage of possibility. And it is this point which re- quires the most careful attention, viz., to be able to see at a glance that, owing to the imperfect or faulty method of inves- tigation employed, or that, owing to certain inferences incom- patible with the general laws and general tendency of the well-founded and experimentally proved facts, the statements set forth in a particular observation or series of observations are not to be accepted. In all investigations of the relation of micro-organisms to disease it is necessary to bear in mind that, as Koch^ has pointed out, no observation can be said to be complete, or, one should rather say, in no instance can it be said to have been satisfactorily proved, that a particular infectious disease is due ' Die Milzbrand-impfnng, Cassel and Berlin, 18S3.