Medicine in the time of John Hunter compared with the medicine of today : annual oration of the Hunterian Society, 1890.

  • Mackenzie, Stephen, 1844-1909.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medicine in the time of John Hunter compared with the medicine of today : annual oration of the Hunterian Society, 1890. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    body. The general facts regarding contagion were, of course, well known long before the period we are considering. The action of contagion was much discussed, and various opinions held regarding its natui-e. But beyond the observed facts that the poisons were emanations from the sick or from the soil—- human or marsh effluvia—but little was known of their real nature. Still it was observed, They arise from putrescent matter. Their production is favoured, and their power increased by circumstances which favour putrefaction ; and they often prove putrefactive ferments with respect to the animal fluids. We have learnt by successive steps since then, from the labours of Chauveau and Burden Sanderson, that the virus is par- ticulate ; and from its power of undergoing multiplication in the body, that it is organized. From the science of bacteriology, only as yet in its infancy, we have already learnt that it is a bacterium, a minute organism not containing chlorophyll, and multiplying by fission. In several diseases affecting man and animal, e.g. tuberculosis, glanders, anthrax, leprosy, chicken- cholera, pneumo-enteritis or swine plague, and the silk-worm disease, the complete proof has been afforded that a specific organism is the causa vera of the disease. In many others a definite micro-organism has been found to be constantly present in the blood, lymph, or tissues of those suffering from a specific and communicable disease, but some link in the chain of evidence is yet wanting to furnish the certain proof of its being the specific contagium. The analogy of the phenomena in the case of the diseases in which a microbe has been identified as the cause of the disease with those in others of the specific diseases, warrants us in expressing a belief that we are within measure- able distance of the time when the specific micro-organism of each communicable disease will be discovered. We are only on the threshold of inquiries into the nature and action of animal ferments, and of putrescent and pathogenic alkaloids, ptomaines and leucomaines. Already important facts have been elicited, which seem to throw a new light on the nature of the process induced by bacterial action, and the knowledge we have gained on this subject promises important bearings in clinical and preventive medicine. I have thus briefly and imperfectly instituted a comparison between medicine in the time of Hunter and that of the present day. It is obvious what immense progress has been made. We must next proceed to glance at the means by which it has been accomplished. The work of the two Hunters, especially that of John Hunter, and of a few of their contemporaries, but still more of their disciples and successors, gave a great stiuuilus to the study of anatomy, physiology and pathology, the only safe