The Hunterian Oration : delivered February 14, 1883 at the Royal College of Surgeons of England / by T. Spencer Wells.

  • Wells, Spencer, 1818-1897.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Hunterian Oration : delivered February 14, 1883 at the Royal College of Surgeons of England / by T. Spencer Wells. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    processes. On this view is also explained the difference in the effects produced by these organisms in man and rodents. Rodents, when inoculated subcutaneously, always develop general acute tuberculosis. That disease is extremely rare in man when compared with the frequency of pulmonary tuberculosis; because in man the bacilli are not inoculated, but are received into the bronchial tubes by inhalation, and their entrance into the circulation is prevented in the first instance by the inflammatory changes which occur around the alveoli in which the bacilli grow. If man-were inoculated as we inoculate rodents, all analogy would lead to the conclusion that acute tuberculosis would probably be developed. Mr. Cheyne is carrying on these researches, the animals experimented on being kept under exceptionally favour- able hygienic conditions, and it is not too much to hope that they may lead to a successful mode of treating phthisis. However strongly tempted to say more on this immensely important subject, I must leave it for a future Hunterian orator, and pass from tubercle and its bacilli to other diseases, more commonly classed as con- tagious or infective. Of all the discoveries of modern times, perhaps the most important is that of the dependence of fermentation and putrefaction upon microscopic organisms; and of a number of communicable diseases upon specific microbes —a convenient word to include the micrococcus, the bacterium, the bacillus, the vibrio-microzoa, or micro- phytes whichever they may be. At Cambridge, eighteen years ago, I attempted to show the relation between the work of Davaine and Pasteur, and the causes of excessive mortality after surgical operations. Allow me to read one sentence from my address in 1864, partly to allude to advances