Diseases of the lungs (of a specific not tuberculous nature) : acute bronchitis; infectious pneumonia; gangrene, syphilis, cancer and hydatid of the lungs / by Germain Sée ; translated by E.P. Hurd ; with appendices by Geo. M. Sternberg, Dujardin Beaumetz.
- Germain Sée
- Date:
- 1885
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Diseases of the lungs (of a specific not tuberculous nature) : acute bronchitis; infectious pneumonia; gangrene, syphilis, cancer and hydatid of the lungs / by Germain Sée ; translated by E.P. Hurd ; with appendices by Geo. M. Sternberg, Dujardin Beaumetz. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![propagation in a suitable medium. So with the butyric, acetic, lactic ferment. So far, then, the analogy is complete between the viruses which produce measles, small-pox, syphilis, etc., and the living agents of the respective fermentations; they are all capable of unlimited self-propaga- tion. Are there any chemical poisons not of an animated, figured nature, but of a soluble kind, which are known to produce similar 1 esults ? I think that we may answer this question in the negative, provided it shall not yet appear that the virus of canine rabies and of snake bites are soluble ferments, of the nature of ordinary toxic neurotic agents, but unlike the latter in their ability to multiply themselves in the blood and tis- sues indefinitely. It would seem from Sir James Fayrer’s researches on Snake Poisons (London Lancet, 1st part, 1884) that the blood of a victim of the bite of a venomous snake is infecting, like the original virus. It is known that the virus of rabies is capable of similar diffusion, and is inoculable from animal to animal. While, then, there seems to be every presumption that the active principle of these viruses is a microbe, there is no proof that such is the case. Sir James Fayrer inclines to the opinion that it is a poison, of the nature of ptomaines; Pasteur believes an un- known microbe to be the cause. There remains here a lacuna yet to be filled. But the analogy does not stop here. The alcoholic, lactic and other like fermentations are each due to a particular bacterium, and if the spe- cific fevers are the expression of fermentative changes m the blood, they must each have a different causal microbe. This early prevision of scien- tific medicine, which has now for the past twenty years been the guiding hypothesis of workers in pathogeny, is now finding justification and veri- fication every day.1 It may here be remarked, moreover, that the underlying assumption that the bacteria are of multitudinous species, living under different conditions, thriving in different media, having a different life history, varying in their action on the higher organisms, some being benign, others malignant, some living and multiplying where others perish, is also proved to have scientific validity. Every one who has intelligently noted the labors of the past twenty years in all lands by indefatigable workers m the domain of ni3^1og)jind 1 Any coincidences between certain parts of v&t\n the Boston Medical and articles which have during the present year appeal t ib] f those Surgical Journal are explained by the iact that 1 am icspo articles.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28057703_0014.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
