As often as one statement is disproved, another is brought forward to take its place. There seems to be an infatuation about the whole question which is more pronounced than in perhaps any other field of research. There seems to be a determination to regard germs as the prime ætiological factor in epidemic diseases especially, in spite of proof and in spite of fact. An epidemic is prevailing everywhere which may be fitly described as "bacteria-mania."

The whole medical world is crazy on the subject of germs. The highest ambition of the medical neophyte seems to be to discover some new form of microscopic life, which in imagination is associated with disease.

The wildest claims are made by enthusiastic devotees to this new doctrine. It has been proposed to explain all diseases by a sweeping application of the germ theory.

One cannot have an old-fashioned cold or give utterance to an orthodox sneeze without a suspicion of harboring microbes, in an active state of multiplication.

A certain Dr. Crothers asserts that delirium tremens is of microphytic origin, and alcoholism is a zymotic desire dependent on germs. A recent writer in one of our Western medical journals, not to be outdone by any German or French enthusiast, asserts that the germ theory is of universal application in explaining morbid phenomena, and has been since the foundation of the world. He asserts with all the appearance of candor that Aaron's rod was a typical bacillus, and that the serpent which Moses erected in the wilderness, was a veritable spirillum. He says Moses was a longheaded, scientific doctor who caused those who were made sick by the plague to run to a point where they could see this serpent which he erected, with a view to warming them up and getting them into a sweat.

But what of the practical application of the germ theory to the cure of the sick? Surely a theory so plausible and of such vital import to suffering humanity ought, in twenty-five years or more, to show some practical results. Let us see.

In 1867 Lister, who was then practicing surgery in Glasgow, Scotland, conceived the idea, that if, as Pasteur and others asserted, putrefaction is impossible without germs, wound diseases such as wound fever, blood poisoning, (sepsis) the formation of pus (sloughing), processes which have so much in common with decomposition outside of the body, may be due to the same

causes. If therefore, he reasoned, the accession of germs to wounds can be prevented; or if the germs reaching these wounds can be rendered harmless, i. e., sterilized, it may be possible to prevent those infections in surgery which in all times past have caused such tremendous mortality. To this end Lister introduced the most elaborate dressings and made use of the most painstaking series of precautions to exclude the possibility of germs entering into surgical wounds.

'Out of this grew what has come to be called anti-septic or anti-germ surgery, or more commonly Listerism, which has unquestionably diminished surgical mortality and been a great boon to suffering humanity.

But after a time other surgeons, English, French, German and American, tired of the tedious processes of Lister, found by actual trial that the success of Listerism did not depend on the killing or exclusion of germs, but only meant cleanliness; that the chief concern of the surgeon is to obviate by his methods the conditions which have been recognized, always, as productive of filth, vermin and disease.

Last fall Dr. Lawson Tait, one of the most, if not the most eminent living ovariotomist, while on a visit to this country was induced to perform numerous operations in the hospitals which he visited, and met with universal success, although these operations were performed, as he states in his American Notes," without the slightest anti-septic precaution."

He says in this connection that for over three years he has "ceased either to accept Lister's doctrines or to follow his practice, and has obtained increasing success thereby."*

Indeed it may be said that at the present day nowhere is Listerism practiced in the way and for the reason that Lister did. when he originated his method.

Dr. John H. Logan, a distinguished physician connected with a prominent Old School medical college in the South (Atlanta, Ga.), says, speaking of Lister and Listerism: "This whole micrococci mania reminds one of a Confederate soldier sitting quietly down to catch, count, assort and bottle his camp lice, instead of using the few well-known remedies to destroy them, the simplest and best of which are soap and water."

That all surgeons have not learned the inutility and the dangers which attach to

*N. Y. Med. Abstract, January, 1885.

the use of powerful antiseptics, that many are still affected with the bacteria craze, is evidenced by many recent reports in our medical journals. At a recent meeting of the St. Louis Medical Society, Dr. Hurlburt stated that he had in his own practice salivated five patients with a solution of the bichloride of mercury (1 to 3,000) given as a vaginal douche twice a day.

In the Medical Record of March 14th, 1885, Dr. George L. Peabody, visiting physician and pathologist to the New York Hospital, calls attention, in a lengthy article, to the toxic effects of corrosive sublimate when used as a surgical dressing. He mentions fifteen fatal cases in the recent practice of Dr. Frankel of Hamburg, and gives a detailed account of eleven cases of poisoning in his own hospital, in seven of which cases the use of this dressing was "followed by frequent bloody discharges, griping, tenesmus, prostration and death." He concludes his paper as follows: "It is not unlikely that many other deaths have resulted from its use, that have been ascribed to other causes, for the reason that we have only recently become aware of the possible dangers that attend it."

If the germ theory has been found wanting in its application to operative surgery, it has proved absolutely impotent for good but pregnant with evil in its therapeutic contributions to diseases in general. For years the store-house of nature has been ransacked for disinfectants which failed to disinfect, and for germicides which could only kill germs by killing the patient at the same time. To-day the most vaunted weapon against germs is the bichloride of mercury; as if mercury in all its preparations and combinations had not been sufficiently tried before the germ theory was thought of.

A few thoughtful observers are waking up to the dangers of the so-called antiseptic medication and are sounding notes of warning, but more by far, carried away by the plausibility of the new doctrine, are going ahead blindly and are administering unheard of doses, not only of mercury, but of other drugs of equally poisonous properties.

In a recent number of a prominent Old School medical journal, one Dr. Henderson, of Woodville, Miss., speaking of his own method of treating cholera, advocates the employment of "calomel, given," as he says, with an unfaltering aim, in large and frequently-repeated doses." In illustration

of its efficacy, he asserts that during the prevalence of cholera from 1848-55, and since, he has used calomel as his principal remedy. He cites the case of a negro, to whom he gave as an initiatory dose fifty grains of calomel, and repeated it in equal or larger doses after every second or third evacuation.

After giving an ounce, or very nearly an ounce of the remedy, he says: "The patient eventually recovered, but of course very weak."

In this same medical journal, for several months past, there has been going on a heated discussion as to who is entitled to the honor of having introduced into practice the giving of large doses of iodide of potash. At present the palm of victory seems to have been carried off by a former physician-inchief to one of the New York hospitals, who, according to the record, gave sixty grains, three times daily, for a series of weeks.

In view of these facts, one would suppose that no "revolution" was necessary in Old School therapeutics, when the manifest and inevitable direction of such revolution is toward a more heroic dosage.

That heroic medication is no more successful in curing the so-called zymotic or infectious diseases, since the ascendency of the germ theory, than it was before, and that it is incomparably less successful than our own system, is conclusively shown by well-authenticated statistics in those two diseases most available for the germ theory to assert itself, viz: Yellow fever and cholera.

I crave your indulgence while I make a brief comparison of the results of the two systems of treatment in these two epidemic maladies.

So far as yellow fever is concerned, let me quote from Prof. Logan's address, delivered at the opening of the Atlanta Medical College, Georgia, at its last opening, October 9th, 188!.

Speaking of the last epidemic of yellow fever in the South, he says:

"Permit me to present a sample of the long conflict with this fell disease in the various stages of its march. In the first place no two physicians agreed as to the real pathology of the disease. * * * * One, regarding it a malarious disease purely, pours in the mercury even to ptyalism. Another, perceiving, as he thinks, periodicity in its exacerbations, cries out for quinine, and shoves in the alkaloid by the drachm. Still another, observing its blood changes, its spanemia, its hemorrhagic char

acter, cries out as lustily for iron-iron is the great hæmostatic remedy. A fourth wiseacre sees no indications, according to his theory, for any of the above-named drugs, but for turpentine; and forthwith turpentine is administered to the bitter end, both inside and outside. A fifth puts his whole reliance on acids, the free use of lemon and lime juice. And lastly a sixth professional Solomon proclaims the stomach to be already too full of acidity, and dumps in the alkalies, usque ad nauseam. The result of this confessed ignorance is the prompt death of every patient whose strength of constitution is unequal to the conflict with the drugs and the disease."

In contrast with this melancholy picture of Old School therapeutics in the treatment of yellow fever, let me give you briefly some statistics of a more encouraging and satisfactory nature, taken from the Report of the Hom. Relief Association of New Orleans.

The total number of yellow fever cases treated homœopathically, under the auspices of the Association, as reported, was 5,640, of which number 3,184 were within the city limits, while 2,456 were in the towns, villages and hamlets in adjacent fever districts. Of the 3,184 treated in the city, 164 died; a mortality of 5 2-10 per cent. Of the 2,456 in outlying points, 174 died; a mortality of 6 per cent.

During the same period covered by the report, the general mortality was a little over 16 per cent. Of the number above recorded, 231 cases of black-vomit are included, of which number 173 recovered, or very nearly 50 per cent.

Under allopathic treatment, nearly every case of black-vomit died.

With these statistics before us, we cannot wonder that Old School medicine is ready to turn its attention in almost any direction whence a better record of success may possibly come.

In the comparative results of cholera under the two systems of treatment, the statistics are still more interesting.

The confusion which exists in the treatment of yellow fever, as portrayed by Prof. Logan, is worse confounded when it comes to cholera.

Some years ago a merchant by the name of Breant left the sum of £4,000 to be given as a prize to the person who should discover an infallible remedy for cholera. On July On July 29th last, Prof. Vulpian brought before the notice of the French Academy of Medicine no fewer than 250 modes of treating cholera,

submitted by aspiring therapeutists. Hot water, castor oil and petroleum were some of the "specifics" recommended, but the prize is still awaiting a successful claimant. The Medical Record of March 7th, 1885,the journal from which I have quoted so frequently before, contains an extract from a paper by one Dr. D. B. Simmonds, who claims to have had a large experience in the treatment of cholera in Eastern Asia from Japan to India. He says: The statistics of the late epidemic in Europe furnish a mortality of 50 per cent. My own statistics of the mortality in Asia give the same average rate of 50 per cent.

"In the former case the majority of the patients received treatment directed by men well informed concerning all the remedial agents known to modern scientific medicine. In the latter class, however, not one patient in a thousand was seen by a physician of the Western school. In fact great numbers of them were not visited by the doctors of any school, preferring to put their trust in charms and prayers to their various divinities, having from long experience had quite as much reason for belief in the curative powers of the one as of the other."

At the April meeting of the London Med. and Chirur. Society, twelve speakers took part in "an adjourned discussion of the treatment of cholera." The president of the Society advocated most strenuously the evacuant treatment, while most of the other speakers condemned the evacuant treatment. "Opiates, astringents, stimulants, intravenous injections of hot saline solutions, and the administration of nutrients were all more or less favorably spoken of by the different speakers."* But there was no uniformity in the treatment. Nothing but individual empiricism.

The homoeopathic treatment of cholera consists and has consisted since the days of Hahnemann in the selection of one or two remedies from a list which does not in typical cases number over a dozen wellknown drugs. I should, I think, be within the limit if I stated the number at half a dozen. And what, with this limited armentarium, has been our success?

In London, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Vienna, comparative statistics of the mortality under the two systems of treatment have been preserved. In London, 1853, the mortality was, under Old School treatment,

*Record, April 7th, 1885.

50 per cent; under homœopathic treatment, 16 per cent.

In Liverpool, in 1849, the mortality under Old School treatment was 46 per cent; under homœopathic, 25 per cent. In 1866, In 1866, the mortality in Liverpool under different modes of Old School treatment ranged from 30 to 71 per cent, while the homoeopathic mortality was 15 per cent.

In Edinburgh the relative mortality was 68 and 25 per cent. In Vienna the mortality was, under Old School treatment, 66 per cent; under homœopathic treatment, 33 per

cent.

It is because of this unsatisfactory state of its therapeutics that it-the Old Schoollooks forward to the germ theory with such ardent hope, as to something which will, in the language of Prof. Flint, already quoted, "revolutionize not only our aetiology and pathology, but also our therapeutics."

But why should the Old School seek for or require a revolution in its therapeutics? Because it realizes the uncertainty and the unreliability of its present and past methods. It has not now and never has had a law for its guidance in the selection of its medicaments. Its successful practitioners have ever been empiricists, using remedies which were traditional or experimental. Experiment has succeeded experiment until repeated and continuous failure suggested the expectant or do-nothing method, by which the patient is lulled to sleep or quieted of pain while nature cures the disease if able to do so. How infinitely superior are the methods of Homœopathy!

Given the symptoms of a disease we look to the pathogeneses of a drug with corresponding symptoms and prescribe that drug with confidence in its certain action.

A

thorough knowledge of the Materia Medica; an ability to interpret the language of disease as expressed in its morbid symptoms, and the homoeopathist has little else to desire to make him a successful practitioner.

It matters but little to him whether the

disease before him is caused by living germs, or whether those living germs are rod-shaped, twisted or curved. In the

drug selected according to the Homœopathic law of similarity he has an all-powerful remedy against the manifestations and the progress of the malady regardless of the

cause.

Is, then, the germ theory a total failure -a thing to cast aside as of no account?

Have the labors of such men as Pasteur and Tyndall and Bastian and Koch and

Lister-have these men and their co-laborers who have devoted the best part of their lives to an investigation of the causes of human suffering and premature death labored for naught, and are we no better off for their tireless labors?

I have not said so. I do not think so.

Looking at the question from a therapeutic standpoint; looking at it as a basis upon which to found a new system of medical treatment, I believe the germ theory to be an ignis fatuus, a will o' the wisp, a delusion and a snare. But looking at it from another standpoint: as one of the great sanitary problems-a question relating to preventive medicine, I hope and believe that the germ theory will prove of incalculable value to the human race. Here

in the field of prophylaxis if anywhere is the germ theory to prove a boon to mankind, and in this direction should future investigation and studies tend.

For us, who have witnessed again and again the triumphs of our system in the most trying and desperate cases of illness -in the fiercest epidemics as well as in sporadic cases, it would be the sheerest folly in the world to falter in our course, and consider for a moment the proposition to barter our birthright for the flesh-pots of Egypt.

And this brings me, in conclusion, to the enunciation of my text, which, contrary to all orthodox customs, I have left till the close of my discourse: What is the Relation of Homœopathy to the Germ Theory?"

66

My answer may be made as brief as the text: the relation which it as a scientific system of medicine bears to any and all correlated scientific questions.

sity of investigating it; it hopes for a soluIt recognizes its appositeness; the necestion of the question; it applauds the heroic and tireless labors of the noble, self-sacrificing men who have engaged in its study; but with a skepticism which is born of intelligence it declines, to accept its conclu

sions until those conclusions are endorsed by practical results. It prefers the facts derived from clinical observation to uncer

tain and indefinite theories arising from speculative hypotheses.

Dr. E. G. Freyermuth, of Denver, Colo., read an able paper on the "Sphere of Stimulants" at the recent meeting of the Colorado Homœopathic Medical Society. Dr. Laura E. Stockdale also read an excellent paper on Ergotism"

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"THE DESTRUCTION OF CHOLERA

GERMS."

The proposition involved in the above caption presupposes that there are such things as "cholera germs" to be destroyed. At any rate, those who act on this supposition cannot go wrong in practice, while those who do not will invite disaster which the former will avoid.

Over a year ago, in a work since published, I wrote:

"It is highly probable that the cholera germ has at last been discovered. Dr. Koch, of Berlin, has demonstrated the presence of a bacillus which bears a constant (whether causative or not is unknown) relation to the disease. Escaping from the bowels in the dejections, these germs find their way into sources of water-supply, and are taken into the systems of others, who in turn fall victims to the disease.

"While the evidence is not yet sufficient to warrant the conclusion that this is the final explanation, yet many facts point to it as being the true course, and it may at least be tentatively accepted."

A year has gone by and the latest writer on the subject, Geo. M. Sternberg, M.D., Surgeon, U. S. A.,† has this to say:

"It is extremely probable that the spirillum, so-called 'comma-bacillus of Koch, demonstrated to be constantly present in the rice-water discharges which characterize the disease, is causative of cholera. what follows we shall keep this probability in view."

In

He then discusses the subject of the best known germicides, from which I extract the following:

Recent experiments have demonstrated that many of the agents which have heretofore been relied upon as disinfectants are completely untrustworthy. The commercial sulphate of iron does not kill micrococci or bacilli without spores. Sulphate of zinc and sulphate of copper are no better.

The metallic chlorides and carbolic acid, while they have some germicide power, cannot be depended upon to disinfect large masses of material, as in privy-vaults, cesspools and sewers.

Water at the boiling point, 212° F., will destroy all micro-organisms not containing spores. Therefore, to disinfect bed-linen and clothing, which have become soiled, we

have effectual means always at hand-boil them.

The most resistant spores known are destroyed by a temperature of 221° F., which may be obtained by means of super-heated

steam.

On this same principle, food or water which has been recently heated to the boiling point, will not convey cholera germs.

Mercuric chloride. This is entitled to a leading place among disinfecting agents.

Clothing and bedding should be put immediately into a standard solution of 1:5000, and kept in it until it is taken out to be boiled and washed.

A standard solution of 1:500, with the same quantity of potassium permanganate, should be used for the disinfection of fecal discharges and other fluids containing germs. The quantity used should equal the quantity of material to be disinfected, and they should remain in contact two hours.

A solution of mercuric chloride is colorless and odorless, and hence accidents might result from its careless handling. The addition of potassium permanganate reduces the chances of such a mishap.

A solution of the proportion of 1:500 may be made by adding two drachms of mercuric chloride to each gallon of water. Add to this two drachms of the potassium permanganate.

A standard solution of 1:5000 (one drachm to five gallons of water) without the permanganate, should be used in which to immerse soiled clothing, bed-linen and other articles which can be washed, and to disinfect the surface of the body of the sick and to wash the hands of the attendants.

The hypochlorites of lime and soda. Next to the mercuric chloride in efficiency, these are recommended. But, owing to the unpleasant odor of the hypochlorites, they are not desirable for use in the sick-room.

Labarraque's solution (liquor soda chlorinato), if freshly prepared, and of a strength containing two per cent. of available chlorine, promptly destroys germs of all kinds, including spores. The high cost of this would remove it from the reach of those of moderate means, if a great quantity were required. It may be diluted, one to twenty, if the time of contact were made two hours

or more.

The hypochlorite of lime is freely soluble. in water. One pound dissolved in two gallons of water, would make a solution of sufficient strength to destroy cholera germs.