Paper read before the Birmingham and Midland counties branch of the British Medical Association, the Midland Medical, the Oldham Medical, and the Devon and Exeter Medico-Chirurgical Societies / by M. Armand Ruffder.

  • Ruffer, Marc Armand, 1859-1917.
Date:
[©189?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Paper read before the Birmingham and Midland counties branch of the British Medical Association, the Midland Medical, the Oldham Medical, and the Devon and Exeter Medico-Chirurgical Societies / by M. Armand Ruffder. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    produced by the fluid itself or from particles coming in through the air? It was to many a pure question of fighting over trifles. Many who prided themselves on being practical men, sneered at the scientific enthusiasm which could be found to fight about trifles of this descrip- tion ; and yet, when one looks at it impartially now, one feels sure that if that battle had not been fought, if Pasteur and others (the greatest among whom is certainly Tyndall) had not proved once for all that putrefying pus will no more produce bacteria than the blood of a dead bull will produce bees, as the ancients thought, the doctrine of the spontaneous origin of disease would not even now be excluded. By new methods it has been shown that the germs of disease breed true, just as the germs of putrefaction or the bacillus of anthrax can never be converted into the bacillus of typhoid, or the latter into the micro-bacillus of pneumonia. It is true that, by domestication, by altering their habits, by change of food, some of the properties o bacteria may be made to vary to a certain degree \ nevertheless, the fact remains, that none of them can any more change their nature than the leopard its spots. It is not easy to fight a hidden enemy, and, therefore, our power to combat disease has increased much since the discovery that the source of contagion is in most cases something tangible—a living organism which we can see, the habits of which we can study, the weaknesses of which we can discover, and which, in many cases, we can render harmless or even turn to our own benefit. The great chemist, Pasteur, who was the first to prevent and cure the diseases of wine and beer, shortly afterwards discovered a means of preventing the diseases of animals, and even of man, by an efficient system of inoculation. I need hardly mention to a medical audience its results against anthrax, quarter evil, rouget and rabies, but I would remind you that these results have not been obtained in France only, but that there is now hardly a country in Europe in which the application of such methods has not been successfully carried out. At the last meeting of the Congress of Hygiene in London, I wrote to all the directors of the various anti-rabic institutes in Europe and in other continents, and asked them to send me the official returns of the cases treated at their institute. It is a remarkable fact, and one which I hope will not grieve my illustrious friend, M. Pasteur, that his own statistics in Paris are, except for one institute, the worst of the whole lot, for I find that the per centage of cures obtained at other institutes, managed according to M. Pasteur’s method, are even better than his own. The difference is very slight, but still exists. I do not think M. Pasteur is likely to complain of his pupils doing better than he does, and to my mind it shows, conclusively, that the method which he investigated has proved true, not only in his hands, but in those of practitioners in all countries. The objections which have been raised against M. Pasteur’s treatment of Rabies were, at one time, almost universal. One hears but little of them now, except in papers published by certain societies chiefly devoted to slandering Medical Science. It is curious that it is almost impossible to trace the source of these statements.