On disinfection by heat : with a description of a new disinfecting chamber / by James Adams, M.D.

  • James Maxwell Adams
Date:
1883
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On disinfection by heat : with a description of a new disinfecting chamber / by James Adams, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    y33 is no longer capable of contaminating liquids, or of inducing fermentation or putrefaction. From such facts and from a re- view of the whole field traversed by other observers, he concludes that these particles are organisms, the germs of septic_ Bacteria. <'The thing he says, which we vaguely call a ' virus is to all intents and purposes a seed * * * as surely as a thistle rises from a thistle seed, as surely as the fig comes from the hg, the grape from the grape, the thorn from the thorn, so surely does the typhoid virus increase and multiply into typhoid tejer, the scarlatina virus into scarlatina, the small-pox virus into small-pox. , This ''virus, these particles or germs, are volatile—are shed freely from infected individuals and from their clothing, and are waft^ to and fro by serial currents. Hence all appliances which have for their object to limit the spread and ensiii^e the destruction of these germs should be planned with special pro- vision for this dangerous property of volatility in the germs of disease. - . • • j While the hyjoothesis of spontaneous generation was in de- pendence and under anxious discussion throughout the scientific world, heat was the chief agent employed to determine the actual vitaHty of microscopic forms that are developed so abun- dantly in. infusions of organic matter, and even in sahne solu- tions. And while there was a general consensus to the effect that heat destroyed the evidence of vitality drawn from active movements, 'there was a great conflict as to the degree and duration oi h&iit required. Moreover, there was a renewed generation of the same forms frequently observed in the liquids supposed to have been sterihsed, which naturally gave rise to the belief in spontaneous generation. The first light thrown on this perplexing riddle was by Professor Cohn of _ Breslau, who showed that confusion and '^contradiction had arisen from having failed to distinguish the growing germ from its seed or spores. And it was reserved for Professor Tyndall to pulverise and destroy for ever the doctrine of spontaneous generation by an exhaustive series of brilliantly conceived and thoroughly conclusive experiments. He showed that the vitality of a germ or embryo organism and its disposition to development was a latent property dependent on different conditions of spores, age, dessication, exposure to air and light, &c., and that subject to these varying conditions there were required varying periods for germination: that in the operation of boiling that was usually adopted for their destruction, the broods or crops may overlap each other, the new brood making its appearance before the old brood died away, and that by repeated boilings at short intervals—and not by prolonged boilings—deahng with