Page:Blackwell 1898 Scientific method in biology.pdf/92

80 Vienna Pathological Institute, with the following results: Six persons partook of the comma bacillus in no mean quantity, and not one of them has had the disease. The six are two doctors, the servant of the Institute, two medical students, and a private gentleman. Professor Stricker treated them all. Two did not feel their health impaired at all; one had headache, was slightly feverish, and could not sleep; two had slight attacks of diarrhœa; and only one was really ill, but recovered at the end of a week. These experiments inspire medical men with serious misgivings as to the theory which considers the comma bacillus as the cause of all cholera.

It is by the recognition of this true method of biological research, and by the generous support of physiologists who honestly seek for truth, even when opposed by temporary fashions of medical opinion, that medicine will become a science.