Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, June 29th, 1867 (IA b22315263).pdf/20

 being occupied by gases in a state of extraordinary condensation.

Even if we look on this merely as a matter of speculation not completely demonstrated, it is a new and intensely suggestive subject, though one on which I cannot enter more at large, having time neither to trace the progress of investigation, nor to review more minutely the results arrived at. I can only affirm that every year we seem more and more capable of entering into these subtle speculations; and though, as it is beautifully expressed by M. Saveney, these new views may be only in penumbrâ, yet we must rejoice that they have reached the half-light of demonstration, emerging from the darker shade of eclipse in which they have been hitherto obscured.

Glancing at the practical aspect of all these inquiries, we may say that meteorology, the full comprehension of which will obviously result from a complete understanding of the nature of light and electricity, is that science to which we are now looking for the law which regulates the transmission of disease.