e of 90 deg. Fahr, when inoculated
with full-grown active bacteria, fills itself in two days with
organisms so sensitive as to be killed by a few minutes' exposure to a
temperature much below that of boiling water. But the extension of
this result to the desiccated germinal matter of the air is without
warrant or justification. This is obvious without going beyond the
argument itself. But we have gone far beyond the argument, and proved
by multiplied experiment the alleged destruction of all living matter
by the briefest exposure to the influence of boiling water to be a
defusion. The whole logical edifice raised upon this basis falls
therefore to the ground; and the argument that bacteria and their
germs, being destroyed at 140 deg., must, if they appear after exposure to
212 deg., be spontaneously generated, is, I trust, silenced for ever.

Through the precautions, variations, and repetitions observed and
executed with the view of rendering its results secure, the separate
vessels employed in this enquiry have mounted up in two years to
nearly ten thousand.

Besides the philosophic interest attaching to the problem of life's
origin, which will be always immense, there are the practical
interests involved in the application of the doctrines here discussed
to surgery and medicine. The antiseptic system, at which I have
already glanced, illustrates the manner in which beneficent results of
the gravest moment follow in the wake of clear theoretic insight.
Surgery was once a noble art; it is now, as well, a noble science.
Prior to the introduction of the antiseptic system, the thoughtful
surgeon could not have failed to learn empirically that there was
something in the air which often defeated the most consummate
operative skill. That something the antiseptic treatment destroys or
renders innocuous. At King's College Mr. Lister operates and dresses
while a fine shower of mixed carbolic acid and water, produced in the
simplest manner, falls upon the wound, the lint and gauze employed in
the subsequent dressing being duly saturated with the antiseptic. At
St. Bartholomew's Mr. Callender employs the dilute carbolic acid
without the spray; but, as regards the real point aimed at--the
preventing of the wound from becoming a nidus for the propagation of
septic bacteria--the practice in both hospitals is the same.
Commending itself as it does to the scientifically trained mind, the
antiseptic system has struck deep root