The disinfectant question : review of a book by Dr. R. Angus Smith, entitled Disinfectants and disinfection.
- Date:
- 1869
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The disinfectant question : review of a book by Dr. R. Angus Smith, entitled Disinfectants and disinfection. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![[all] having no activity and utterly incapable of producing those prodigious results which are found when that force begins to work which produces small-pox or black death (p.p. 21, 22). . . . “ Is the cause of [those] diseases an organic substance in the process of decomposition conveying that decomposition to another body, or is it an organized germ ? The two great theories may be called Liebig’s and Pasteur’s ; the first, Liebig’s, dealing with organic decomposing matter, ready to communicate its action by its activity. The second, that of Pasteur, leads to organized, bodies or germs, and although he has not first originated the idea, the clearest proof and expression of it is due to him. (p. 22). . . These explanations may be called two, the chemical and the germ theory (Liebig’s and Pasteur’s). There seems no reason to limit the number of infectious diseases till the number of chemical substances transferring decomposition is limited also, and until the number of germs, and the list of their transformations, is finally completed and made known to us.” (p.p. 28, 29). Now, we are quite unable to remember any writing by Pasteur, in which he treats of the intimate nature and cause of contagious or any other diseases, whereas Liebig, as is well known, has devoted one of the most interesting chapters of his “Chemistry of Agriculture” to the discussion of those subjects. Pasteur, indeed, has written, and written well, on fermentation and putrefaction, as Liebig also has done; but their views on the latter questions, though divergent, are not so entirely in opposition as has been generally supposed. Their several investigations led them in different directions,—that of the latter, towards oxidation or the more purely chemical phase of the fermentative and putrefactive processes,—that of the former, to the part played by infusoria. But while Pasteur admits, that flesh protected from infusorial germs is capable of gradually asquiring taint when in small volume, and of becoming “ gangrenous” when in larger masses, Liebig has, to a certain extent, forestalled Pasteur by recognizing the active agency of infusoria in the processes by means of which organized tissues are broken up and reduced to simple binary compounds. Both are agreed in respect to fermentation and putrefaction being ulti¬ mately effected by chemical means, only Pasteur has](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30569783_0012.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
