The most generally interesting of the discussions in the Medical
Congress appears to have been that held on Friday and Saturday, on the origin and action of minute organisms found within animal cells and tissues. Of course, the dis- cussion became one on the old question whether organic germs are ever engendered out of substances destitute of those germs ; or whether, whenever germs of any particular species are found, they have been introduced either in the air, or from the other surroundings. M. Pasteur, the great experimenter, on phylloxera and other diseases of the same kind, was present, and was received with great enthusiasm by the Congress ; and he combatted with great force Mr. Bastian's view on this sub-. ject, asking the friends of the theory that organic germs can be produced out of substances which do not contain them, to point to any scientific fruits of their theory ; while the whole principle of what is called the antiseptic treatment of wounds is the fruit of the opposite theory, and is one which has done more to improve the medical and surgical art of our day, than all other discoveries put together. In the paper by Professor Klebs, of Prague, on which the discussion was founded, it was pointed out that those dangerous organisms which give typhoid, or splenic fever, or diphtheria, or cholera, according to their specific kind, are capable of being so cultivated—just as ordi- nary vegetables are artificially cultivated—under the action, chiefly, of heat and oxygen, as to communicate either a very mild form of the disease, or else, along with the disease, a protective stimulus to the system enabling it to throw the disease off, and that the result is an indisposition which ensures the patient against any dangerous onset of the malady. The paradox of the theory,—of course, we need not say that the practice justifies itself, however difficult the theory may be,—is this, that it seems to define true health and strength of constitution as if it could only be gained at the cost of running the gauntlet of a whole host of attenuated diseases.
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