The following is the text of the paper read by Dr. Duncan J. Reid, M.B,, at Thureday night's (24th March, 1892) meeting of the Sh"nghai Literary and Debating Ido not think it is necessary to offer any apology for the rather medical air of the lecture to-night, seeing thit for sume time past the subject of microbes has been discussed almost as fully in the public prints as in the medical journals, Last year, on the announcement that a cure fur consumption had been discovered by Dr. Koch of Besliu, people in all pats of the world were thrown into a state of excitement that was only equalled by the disappointment aroused when it was after-wauls found to bea failure, Was all this excitement surprising, ering how widespread and fatal the disease is? And was it surprising that, for once, medical men seemed to have been thrown off their guard, and for once to have forgotten their watch-word "to doubt all things" when the announcement was made on the authority of aman, of whom until then it had beun said, He never errs?
Are we then now that Koch lymph has proved a failure, to class it with the many nostrums that have been produced in past and present times? Certainly not. The discovery of tuberculin is simply one link 'a chain of investigations that have beet going on for the last 16 or 20 years, Sor may appear less brilliant than others; a:
my as yet seem to have borne no fruit and sonic may have been proved by later investigators to have been absolutely. erroneous; but on the other hand lave been absolutely epuch-forming their brilliance; and when looked at as a whole, this series of investigations, with its results, forms the greatest advance that has been made in scientific medicine in the history of man, I think it is well at the outset, to define what is meant by the term microbe, and also the term micro-organism, both. of which, as you will find, occur pretty frequently in the course of the lecture, It is well known to all of you, that as we descend the scale, in both the animal and vegetable lust, come tu microscopic organisms, ut which it is very dificult to say, to which of the kingdonis they belong. "Among many of the lower orders of plants we have no chlorophyl, to us in our decision, and we may have, in them, the power of motion quite us well marked as in any of the infworia. The word microbe, then, was coined to. meet this difficulty. It simply means "a small living thing" but takes no note of whether. it. belongs to the animal or vegetable kingdom. The word bacteria is used in the same sense, and is the word more often used by English writers. By most observers it is now held that these. microbes or bacteria, are vegetable organisms, allied to, the fungi or the ferment rganisin " simply means a minute animal or vegetable body, but is not used in quite so restricted & sense as the last two terms.
The order in which I wish to take up the different points bearing on the subject, is as follows 1.—Early observations on.microbes; and the question of spontaneous generation, 2—Fermentation. [It is important have a thorough understanding of what takes place during the ordinary fermentations, as of beer, etc., as we thus haves key to what goes on, in the human body, under the influence of the, microbes of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.