The fungoid origin of disease, and spontaneous generation / by Jabez Hogg.

  • Jabez Hogg
Date:
[1871]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The fungoid origin of disease, and spontaneous generation / by Jabez Hogg. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    4/8 page 157
    living creatures have reappeared, is by no means satisfactory. This admits of a different explanation, which will at once suggest itself to those who have thought over the phenomenon. Neither does it prove that because the elements of non-living matter are known to group themselves anew, so as to produce living matter under the influence of those physical forces which are concerned in bringing about the growth of a plant; that the same forces can be made to combine by long boiling to reproduce life or reconstruct the disinte- grated particles of dead matter, and convert them into higher organisms than had previously existed. It seems to me impossible to attempt in this manner the settlement of a point of so much importance as that of the origin of life. And since we cannot undertake to say with anything like certainty that we have succeeded in destroying every living germ in any experiment we may institute, then, I fear, the spontaneous generation hypothesis is hardly worthy of further serious consideration. But with regard to Dr. Sanderson’s investi- gations of certain contagious forms of disease, he produces positive evidence that nothing like bacteria or microzymes can be discovered in the blood of persons affected with scarlatina. This is an important and interesting fact, one very suggestive as to the cause of particular forms of disease, and seeming to lead to the conclusion that contagious affections are produced by a putrefactive change, a contamination introduced from without into the circulation. From whatever stand-point we view the important question of contagion, or the origin of life, I am quite sure it will ultimately end in a gain to our scientific knowledge; and as every additional contribution will I am sure be acceptable, I shall offer no apology for introducing a very interesting letter, written by Henry J. Carter, F.B.S., some four or five years ago, as a criticism on a paper of mine which appeared in the ‘ Intellectual Observer,’ “ On Phases in the Developmental History of Infusorial Life,” a great portion of which is quite pertinent to the question under review at this moment. Btjdleigh Salterton, Devonshire, March 14th, 1867. My dear Sir,—I do not yet believe in spontaneous generation, nor will the theory, if ever substantiated, be so until a knowledge of the ultimate forms of the phenomena called “ life ” is obtained; while it seems to me that we are as far from this as from the ultimate atoms of matter. When we see, under the microscope, insect forms almost as small as the smallest animalcules, and know, from inference, how complicated their structure must be; when we find their limbs as transparent as glass, and thus, apparently, as structureless, yet know that there is structure even in glass. When we find that there is no extent to the slowness of change of form and movement in organized matter, that with the highest magni-
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3