The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1876-11-09

s. drop the curtains, Chandler dear ,s
d ~, The bonfres make my eyebails acht'
Those victorysnotcs my heart will break.
4 An a&fu! ghost in my room,
With horrid blue jeans breeches on,
see the shadow In The gloom,
Oil bid the haunting thing begohe.
icno.y-comc Chandler, come, bid me 9eig good night
They've whipped us fairly in the fight,
So put me In my little bed.
Germs of Pestilencc and Death.
THE PROCESS OF OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
INFECTIOUS DIsEAsES-FEARFUL RAYAGES
DUE TO ATMOSPHERIC DUST.
from the Edinburgh Scotsman, October 20.l
The first Of series OF science lectures to
be given in Glasgow during the winter
months was delivered in the City Hall last
night by Professor Tyndall, the subject be-
ing Fermentation" Professor 'Tyndall,
who was received with applause, said that
in a book with which they were all familiar
it was said, coast thy bread upon the
waters, and thou shalt find it after many
DAYS" and in more senses than one that
prccept was illustrated by his presence
that night. First, and IN q general sense,
he stood indebted to the historians,
the poets, and the philosophers OF Scot
land, and above and beyond all, to
that venerable and illustrious man whom he
was proud to call his friend, Thomas Car
lyle: and second, and in more special
sense, it so happened that one OF the first
rootlcts of his scientific life derived nutrl-
ment from the city Of Glasgow. 1t was by
reading the Practical Mechanics and En-
qineerS' magazine, periodical puDllShed
in Glasgow, that he yearned to nave Such
apparatus as Leslie and Dayy had to enable
him to make such experiments, ana the
very apparatus, similar and Identical TO
those he first saw i'll the pages OF that
magazine, were those with which he Illus
trated his lectures in London. 1t was
his intention to speak about fermenta-
ton, not in metaphorical but IN
the real sense, and he was perfectly GER
tain that the only thing needed to make the
subject interesting was suitable treatment.
Our knowledge Of fermentation and the
ground it covered was augmented greatly OF
late, and every fresh acquisition confirmed
the hope that it's final issues would be OF
incalculable advantage to mankind. one OF
the most remarkable characteristics OF the
age was its tendency to connect ltsel1 Or
ganicaly with the preceding ages. Our fore
fathers may have been sarages, but they must
have been clever and observant ones laugh
CeTJ, laflHS lully cApAtlhCO the ~ VI
fermentation. In Pasteur's researches the
bactarium remained bactarium, the vibrio
yibrio, the pendulum 4 pendulum,
and the tornia 4 tornia. Sow any Of
these in a state OF purity in al ap-
propriate liquid and you get it, and 1t
alone, in the subsequent crop. In like
manner SOW smallpox in the human body,
YOUR cropis smallpox; sow scarlatlna, and
YOUR crop is scarlatina; typhoid virus, your
crop is typhoid; cholera, and your crop is
cholera. The disease bears as constant 4
relation to its contaglum as the microscopic
organisms enumerated do to their germs, or
as. thistle does to its seed. No wonder,
then. with analogies so obvious and so strlk-
ing that the conviction was spreading and
growing daily in strength, that reproduce
tive and parasitic life is ut the root OF cpl
demic disease The living ferments finding
Judgment in the body, increase there and
multiply directly, running the tissue on
which they subsiSt, OF destroying life
indirectly by the generation Of poison
GUS compounds within the body. This con-
clusion, which came to Us with q pre-
sumption almost amounting to demonstra-
ton, was clinched by the fact that yirulent
infectious diseases had been discovered
with which living organisms were as closely
and rs indissolubly associated as the growth
OF torula is with fermentation of beer; and
here, if they would permit him, he would
utter word OF warning to well-meaning
people. They had now reached phase OF
this question when it was Of the very last
Importance that light should once for all be
thrown upon the manner in which conta-
gious and and infectious diseases took root
and spread. To this end the action Of var
ous fcrmentS upon the organs and tissues
of the living body must be studied;
the habits OF each special organism
concerned in the production OF each
specific disease must be determined,
and the mode by which its germs
were spread abroad as sources Of further in
lection. It was only by such rigidly accu-
rate inquiries that we could obtain final and
complete mastery over these destroyers.
Hence, while abhorring cruelty Of all kinds;
while shrinking sympathetically from all
animal suffering-sutfering which his own
pursuits never cali upon him to infiict-an
unbiased survey of the field of research
now opening out before the psychologist
lamity could bcfall the human race than the
stoppage of experimental inquiry in this di-
rection. A lady whose philanthropy has
lcuuClCu ACI 1IiuoIA1oeto eeSA w hlh eOiiO
time ago that science was becoming immo-
raj; that the researches Of the past, unlike
these OF the present, were carried on with
out cruelty. He replied to her that the sci
enee of Kepler and Newton, to which she
referred, dealt with the law and phenomena
Of inorganic matter, but that one great adj
vance made by modern science was in
the direction Of biology, or the science OF
life, and that in this new direction a scien-
ti6c inquiry, though at the outset pursued
Mt cost OF some temporary suffering,
would, in the end, prove it thousand times
more bcnefcent than it had ever hitherto
been. He said this because he saw that the
researches which the lady deprecated were
leading us to such knowledge Of epidemic
disease as would enable us finally to sweep
these scourges Of the human race from the
face of this earth. The very first step to-
ward the eXtirpation of these contagia was
the knowledge OF tAeir nature. The ques-
ton, then, which he wished to submit to
their judgment was this: Was the know
ledge which revealed the nature and
which assures the eXtirpation OF a disor-
der not well worth the price paid for it
1t was exceedingly important that as
semblies like the present should see clearly
the issues at stake in such questions as this,
and that the properly-informed common
sense OF the community should temper, if
not restrain, the rashness OF those who,
meaning to be tender, would virtually enact
the most hideous cruelty by the imposition
frI,o a. spr1,t I'D 49,