Science.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 387, 8 October 1903, Page 2

Science.

PASTEUR AND LISTER'S DISCOVERIES. §5fE2 GREAT glory of nineteenth cenffiMS tury medicine were the revelathe origin of many diseases through the adoption of germs, ' an advance which has revolutionised theory and practice in surgery and midwifery and in many departments of medicine. The beginning of the search for antiseptics may be dated, in Great Britain, from Sir James Paget's address in 1862 on 'The Treatment of Wounds.' He appealed to his hearers not to be content with the present state of things. He spoke of ' the sora plagues of surgery,' septicemia, pjsemia, and erysipelas, of the supreme value of repose and cleanliness, and of the difficulty of getting either, and more especially cleanliness in a surgical sense. . . The first step towards the discovery of the influence of micro-organism in the production of disease and in the healing of wounds had been made in 1857 through M Pasteur's investigations into the nature of the various kindß of fei mentation. He proved that these particles were living bodies, not arising the material capable of fermentation of almost infinitely small particles from the outer world, and that these particles were living bodies, not arising spontaneously, breeding true as to its species, requiring nutriment to buildup and renew their snbstanoe, and leaving a residuum of < xcrete waste products. He proved further that by excluding microorganisms fermentation was absolutely prevented.' Pasteur's work was soon to make a revolution in surgery and niki- * ifery. A ghastly mortality after operations occurred, even as late as ia the I l ' anco-German War. ' M. Verneuil wrote.-—' Nothing was successful, neither abstention, restricted or radical operation, early or lato extraction of bullets, dressings rare or frequent, emollient or excitant, dry or moißt, with or without drainage; we tried everything in vain. Nelation declared that ho who should conquer purulent infection would deserve a golden statue. It occurred to Alphonso Unerin that if Pasteur's views as to germs in the air were true, the air in contact with the wounds could be filiored by many layors of cotton-wool, and putting this idea into practice in an imperfect way he had the satisfaction of teeing nineteen out of thirty-four cases recover. Guorin asked Pasteur's help towards further improvement, and presently Lister's methods became known iu France, partly by the medium of Professor Tyndall's well-known article on ' Duats and Diseases,' which was repufr nhed in a French review. But the science of the study of microorganisms did not stop with the rise of antiseptic surgery; it continued to develop. Improved methods of investigation were devised by both Freroh and German biologists, and about 1880 it became possible to separate the various bacteria found in an animal or material, to get a pure or unmixed culture of esob, and thus to be in a position to study the effect of each, and to be able to oetimate any variation in strength of infective power, it might develop under varying conditians. Immense infimnce resulted from the method Koch elaborated for growing many mixed micrc-organisms separately. Step by step, and with infinite labour and patier.ee the specific micro-orgaDism of tuberculous (diecovowd by Koch in 1882), of glanders, anthrax, tetanus, diptheria, cholera, malaria, plague, and influenza has been found, and its life-history trtcad.' In conclusion, he says:—' In the progress of medicine duiiog the last twentyfive years the influence of the best universities in the United States, and in a smaller degree of those ia Canada, has been a factor of considerable importance. The standard of work at, for instance, the

Johns Hopkins University of Baltimore, U.S.A., has conspicuously succeeded in influencing the best Earopeaa workers on pathology, clinical medicine and surgery. The reasons why certain universities in the United States have made their work felt so much more powerfully than any similar institutions on this side of the AtlanHsis a complex problem made tip i £ many factors. Among them, however, it is safe to say, that the magnificent liberality shown by rich men and women in endowing some of the best universities in the States and in Canada ocoup-'es a very important place. . . If England is to keep up with the United States in research and its applications to pathology and mediune, large endowments must be forthcomiag for Oxford and Cambridge, and for the University of London. Failing them we shall have to be content with admiring the work done in the best v American universities, and with taking a I second place cm selves.'