THE GERM THEORY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 746, 18 June 1886, Page 14

THE GERM THEORY.

Probably no discovery in the history of discovery, has been fraught with more beneficial result than that which is popularly known as the germ theory. Kirchner, Schwann, Hemholtz, Koch, Pasteur, Budd, Huxley, Lister, Sanderson, Carpenter, Tyndall, and Bastian have shown us that in the midst of life, indeed, we are in death. The air we breathe, the water we drink, teems with minute organisms termed bacteria—active agents in the work of putrefaction. Huxley, in his discourse upon * Dust and Disease,’ proved the organic origin of the motes floating in London air, which are revealed by their reflecting and scattering the light of a beam of sunshine or electric light. When these motes are burnt or intercepted, darkness is produced in the beam, the air being then rendered optically pure. Germs, then, are never absent from the conditions of our lives, unless under the application of heat, or, in a minor degree, of filtration. It is obvious, therefore, that it should be our care to keep the air we breathe and the water we drink as free as possible from the contamination of life germs, whose putrescent action is the cause of disease. To do this, it is incumbent upon us to keep our dwellings and surroundings free from those influences in which arise the germs of disease. This, however, is at all times difficult to accomplish ; and it is a curious circumstance, not as yet explained by scientific investigation, that disease is by no means the scourge only of those who live amidst surroundings of filth and squalor. On the contrary, it is often found that epidemics are most severe in their action among tlie well-to-do and refined classes of society. The Jews of the Ghetto, and the denizens of St. Giles, were not those whosuffered mostseverely duringtlie periodical epidemics of cholera within the past eighty years. Observing this, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that the rude force of constitution which enabled those people to resist the influence of disease arose in their comparative purity of blood. Hard fare and hard work are the natural conditions under which sound health is secured, and the physiologic conclusion is that the germ basis of disease i 3 comparatively harmless in its action upon those whose physical functions and bodily system are sound and healthy. This acknowledged, wo ere compelled to the conclusion that the first and most important factor in any system of resistance to disease, resides in securing parity of blood. That attained, all the organs of the body become healthy, and diseases which strike down the weak and feeble are powerless (o harm those who have restored to themselves the conditions of a natural existence.

How to accomplish this end is, then, an allimportant question. But it is readily answered. Science, while alert to trace the origin of disease, is no less ceaseless in. her efforts to discover preventives and curatives. And just as the skilful farmer, by the application of those phosphates which have been exhausted, restores to laud weakened by incessant croppings, the elements which have been withdrawn from it, so the chemist supplies those restorative agents which give back to the human system the strength and force which have been wasted. This fact is beautifully illustrated in Warner's safe cure. In Europe and America there are many thousands now alive who owe this agreeable circumstance to the use of this specific, when attacked with Typhoid and analogous diseases. The direct influence of this renowned medicine is upon the blood, which is restored to its original purity, and purged from all poisonous and debilitating matter. Thus, in all conditions of malaria, typhoid, scarlet fever, as well as when the system is weakened by Bright’s disease, ordinary kidney or uninarv affections, disorders of the liver and. ro forth, a resort to Warner’s safe cure is always attended with good results. This is because the blood is purified and fortified by the assimilation or such restorative agents as nature has beneficially provided. In view of the prevalence of Typhoid in these colonies at the present time, it is necessary to impress upon the public intelligence the brief faets we have referred to. To be armed against the germs of the disease it is necessary to purify the blood ; to do this it is only needful to do that which we have indicated, and attend to those ordinary hygienic and sanitary rales which suggest themselves to every thoughtful person.