" From these beginnings
modern surgery took its rise, and the whole subject of wound infection,
not only in relation to surgical diseases, but to child-bed fever, forms
now one of the most brilliant chapters in the history of preventive
medicine.
(*) Lancet, March 16, 1867. (Cf. Camac: Epoch-making
Contributions, etc., 1909, p. 7.--Ed.)
With the new technique and experimental methods, the discovery of the
specific germs of many of the more important acute infections followed
each other with bewildering rapidity: typhoid fever, diphtheria,
cholera, tetanus, plague, pneumonia, gonorrhoea and, most important of
all, tuberculosis. It is not too much to say that the demonstration
by Koch of the "bacillus tuberculosis" (1882) is, in its far-reaching
results, one of the most momentous discoveries ever made.
Of almost equal value have been the researches upon the protozoan forms
of animal life, as causes of disease. As early as 1873, spirilla were
demonstrated in relapsing fever. Laveran proved the association of
haematozoa with malaria in 1880. In the same year, Griffith Evans
discovered trypanosomes in a disease of horses and cattle in India, and
the same type of parasite was found in the sleeping sickness.
Pages:
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279