The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1903-05-01
JUDGE HART
ON MICROBES
BacterioIogy Is Another
Error of the
Moon.

foremost physicians of South America"
He is reported as saying: IL announce
| to you that have found the germs of
leprosy in the iieas that have bitten
| lepers, and 1 believe that the flea is
the agent that transmits the bacillus
from the lepers to the clean, and thus
communicates the disease"
The above quotation prompts the
| question whether or not a lot of fuss
| is not made apropos of so-called path
ogenic microbes. DR.. Charles Creigh-
ton, in his classical work. "A History
of Epidemics in Britain From 664 A. d.
to the Extinction OF the Plague, 1856"
says: The virus of plague, we are told,
| Is specific; 1t has existed from an I'M
known antiquity, and has come down
in an unbroken succession; we can no
more discover how 1t arose than we can
tell how the first man arose, or the first
species Is, indeed, of the nature of the
lowest vegetable organisms. The objec-
ton to that hypothesis" he continues
|
facts. The hypothesis of one
single source of the plague, of a species
of disease arising we know not how
beginning we know not where, but at all
events reproduced by ordinary genera
| ton, in an unbroken series of cases, alb
! ayes alb avo is the merest verbalism
wanting in reality or concreteness and
dictated by the curious Illusion that Il
| species of disease, because it repro
duces itself after it's kind must resem-
Bile, in other respects, a species of liv-
ing things"
In his Modern Doctrine of Bacteri-
ology, or the Germ Theory of Disease"
1902. DR.. George Granville Bantock
+. r. c. s., Ed says: THE modern
doctrine of Bacteriology is a gigantic
mistake that we are already at the
| parting of the ways and that 1t Is safe
to predict, that, ere long, it will come
to be recognized that these various
| bacilli play a beneficent role in the
economy of nature" In Bacteria" by
George Newman, M. d., f. r. S.
Q,dinD. d. p. H., (Cambo, are these
| words: ct (Bacteriology) Is a science
fuller of hone than proved and tested
! knowledge,"
DIR. Boucher in the Journal de Med
ecine de Paris March. 1902, says: 1.-THE
master bacteriologists heap I'm hypothe-
SEES. coniectures; they find nothing pre-
else nothing definite. overcome by the
effort. their reason falls asleep in the
/ singular. the fantastic. and before their
oyerwrouyht imapination there arise,
with horrible aspect and as the genii
of death, all the beasts of creation. Be-
fore their eyes defile diptheretic fowls
and pigeons. pneumonia parrots, gigan-
tic marsh MOSQUITOES. pestiferous rats
flies hugs Tuberculosis earth worms
tetanic horses" DR.. Boucher further
adds. eft becomes difficult to listen
without pain to the meteorological
lucubrations, the history of microbes
the theories of disinfection, the pulver-
isations, etc. and to look on uncon-
cerned at this apotheosis of foolishness
of Ignorance and madness"
Surely. sir. n little satire is per-
MISSILE touching views on microbes,
and as newspaper readers as a rule only
come across one side of the question
perhaps 1t is well they should occasion
ally be treated to the other. Hence 1
offer YOU the ACCOMMODATING paper,
written three wears ago for the Adver-
tiser. but kept back for good reasons
But. Mr.. Editor. many physicians in the
front rank of their profession, think
and saw there Is room for more than
satire. Saws Richardson in the "As-
clepiad": what food for disdainful-
est saddest satirel What food for men
of the Tolstoi school, who look upon the
representatives of medicine as 'knaves.
cheats and scoundrels.' DR.. Lutaud,
editor of the Journal de Medicine dc
Paris. saws: For more than ten years
we have warned our colleagues against
using these anti-toxin serums, which
have now so Increased in number as to
he beyond all count. Either these con-
they are dangerous. and we have never
ceased to use this language concerning
them" This, sir, was written over two