The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-05-01
JUDGE HART
ON MICROBES
BacterioIogy Is Another
Error of the
Noon.

Editor Advertiser IN your issue OF
this morning appears the following
touching certain views OF zone of the
foremost physicians of South America -
He is reported as saying: II announce
leprosy II. the fieas 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. ga History
of Epidemics in Britain From 664 A. D.
says: The virus of plague, we are told,
is specific; it has existed from an un-
known antiquity, and has come down
in an unbroken succession; we can no
more lscoyer how it arose than we can
tell how the first man arose, or the first
mollusk or the first moss or licben; it's
species is, indeed, of the nature of the
lowest vegetable organism. The objec-
tfbn to that hypothesis he continues,
'i5 that it involves a total 4 sregard of
facts, The hypothesis of one
single source of the plague, Of species
of disease arising we know not how,
beginning we know not whore, but at all
events reproduced by ord nary genera
ton, in an unbroken series Of cases. alb
ayes alb ave, is the mereSt verbalism,
wanting in reality or c0ncF2feneSS, and
dictated by the curious illuaion that a
species of disease, because it repro
duces itself after it's kind, aust resem-
bic, 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. r C. s., Ed, says: 1.-The modern
doctrine of Bacteriology is a gigantic |
mistake; that we are already at the |
parting of the ways, and that it is safe |
to predict, that, ere long, it will come |
to be recognized that these various
bacilli play a beneficent role in the
of nature" In Bacteria" by |
George Newman, M. D., T. R S. |
(I1din.), D. P. H., (Camb.), are these |
words: TT (Bacteriolog) is a science
fuller of hope than proved and tested
DR.. Boucher iii the Journal de Med
-Clne Q0 6dTtSy d1dICn, 1SUZ, Sd yS. he
master psychologists heap up hypothe-
ses, conjectures; they find nothing pre-
Else, nothing definite; overcome by the
effort, their reason falls asleep in the
singular, the fantastic, and before their
imaginations there arise,
with horrible aspect and as the genii
IF death, all the beasts of creation. Be-
fore their eyes defile diptheretic fowls
and pigeons. pneumonic parrots, gigan-
.ic marsh mosquitoes, pestiferous rats,
lies, bugs, tuberculous earth worms
.etanic horses" DIR. Boucher further
adds: ut becomes difficult to listen
pain to the meteorological
the history OF microbes,
he theories of disinfection, the pulver-
etc, and to look on uncon-
erned at this apotheosis of foolishness,
# ignorance and madness"
Surely, sir, a little satire is per-
nissible touching views on microbes,
nd as newspaper readers as a rule only
,ome across one side of the question
perhaps it is well they should occasion
lily be treated to the other. Hence
ffer you the accompanying paper,
written three years ago for the Adver-
User, but kept back for good reasons.
suit, Mr. Editor, many physicians in the
ront rank of their profession, think
nd say there is room for more than
attire. Says Richardson in the CAS-
lepiad": What food for disdainful-
ST. saddest satire! What food for men
f the Tolstoi school, who look upon the
representatives. of medicine as 'knaves,
heats and scoundrels.' Dr. Lutaud,
ditor of the Journal de Medicine de
'aris, says: For more than ten years
re have warned our colleagues against
sing these anti-toXin serumS, which
e beyond all court. Either these con-
octions . are not efficacious, or
1ey are dangerous, and we have never
eased to use this language concerning
leIn.'' This, sir, was written over two
ears ago, and in January last there
ccurred in India, at Mulkowal, what
ne Lancet euphemisticaliy calls 1.-THE
1oculation Mishap," which, being in
means that nineteen per-
ms were found suffering from tetanus
nd died" the result of incubation for =
lie prevention of plague by the gov
physiciani the trouble being :
lie serum was not quite what it was
opposed to be, All, well, one thing
ust strike the ordinary mind: that it
light be better if many modern physi-
ans like their great forerunner. Hip -
,crates, would renounce the pom
'us part of prescriptions" and follow
m in simplicity, for, Mature will not
condemned of any one. Who thwarts
loses; and who serves it, gains" =
True medicine" says Sydenham,
consists in the discovery Of real indi-
tions, rather than in the excogitation
remedies"
Thanking you, sir, for the opportu-
ty of putting forth the above views,
bscribe myself LAYMAN