Page:Blackwell 1898 Scientific method in biology.pdf/91

Rh adversary of the cholera bacillus; but it is erroneous to suppose that when a specific microbe has been discovered in the secretions of an infectious disease that the means of fighting it has also been discovered. The discovery of the bacillus of consumption was just as interesting as the discovery of the cholera bacillus, but since its discovery phthisis has destroyed neither one man less nor one man more.

‘These (bacteriological) methods for protection against cholera rest purely upon theory; and it seems to be thought that henceforth cholera, etc., ought to behave according to the prevalent theory, instead of theory being modiﬁed according to the cholera. Instead of trying to catch the comma bacillus and draw a cordon around it, the essential thing is to make all the dwelling-places of man healthy.’

Such is the vigorous and genuinely-scientific experiment of a distinguished medical investigator.

Other experimenters have conﬁrmed Dr. Von Pettenkofer’s observations. On October 17 Dr. Emerich made a similar experiment on himself, with like results.

Since then, experiments have been made in the