and certain a piece of work to be at once accomplished as is the building of an ironclad. But it will not be done for many years because of the ignorance and unbelief of those who alone can act for the community in such matters. The discovery—the presentation to the eye and to exploring manipulation—of that well-nigh ultra-microscopic germ of death, seemed to me, as I gazed at its delicate shape, a thing of greater significance to mankind than the emendation of a Greek text or the determination of the exact degree of turpitude of the statesmen of a bygone age.
The knowledge of the causation of disease by bacterial and protozoic parasites is a thing which has come into existence, under our very eyes and hands, within the last fifty years. The parasite, and much of its nature and history, has been discovered in the case of splenic fever, leprosy, phthisis, diphtheria, typhoid fever, glanders, cholera, plague, lock-jaw, gangrene, septic poisoning (of wounds), puerperal fever, malaria, sleeping sickness, and some other diseases which are fatal to man. In some cases the knowledge obtained has led to a control of the attack or of the poisonous action of the parasite. Antiseptic surgery, by defeating the poisonous parasite, has saved not only thousands upon thousands of lives, but has removed an incalculable amount of pain. Control is slowly being obtained in regard to several others among these deadly microbes in various ways, most wonderful of which is the development, under man's control, of serums containing anti-toxins appropriate to each disease, which have to be injected into the blood as the means of either cure or protection. But why should we be content to wait long years, even centuries, for this control, when
