By Herbert Snow, MD, 1905
The Germ Theory of Disease, so prominent in medical literature and
practice, began with the unsuccessful efforts of the chemist Pasteur to
apply to human maladies—which, not being a doctor, he only knew
academically—deductions drawn from the phenomena he had observed in
fermentation.
There has never been anything approaching scientific proof
of the causal association of micro-organisms with disease; and in most
instances wherein such an association has been pretended, there is
abundant evidence emphatically contradicting that view. Yet most
unfortunately, this lame and defective theory has become the foundation
of a very extensive system of quackery, in the prosecution of which
millions of capital are embarked, and no expense spared to hoodwink the
public with the more credulous members of the Medical Faculty.
It may
then not be out of place to survey, as judicially as may be, the
position in which the Germ Theory now stands; with the ill-consequences
very conspicuously resulting from its premature adoption as a proven
axiom of Science. Those ill results are demonstrated and lucidly set
forth in categorical detail, by the recently published Minority
Report—whereof Dr. George Wilson is author—of the Royal Commission on
Vivisection.
The subject naturally falls into two divisions: a) the Microbe or
Germ as asserted to cause febrile and infectious maladies; b) the same
as the supposed source of suppuration in wounds, and of the basis of
Lister’s exploded “Antiseptic Theory.” The former appertains to
Medicine, the latter to Surgery.
I. MICROBES AS THE ASSERTED CAUSE OF FEVERS, CONSUMPTION, DIPHTHERIA, ETC.
The majority of zymotic maladies are unquestionably due to some
sanitary defect, as dirt, foul air, polluted water, innutritious food,
deficient light, etc.; and when the fault has been remedied, the disease
is prevented or cured. But these are its gross causes. Of the subtler
agencies whereby illness is produced, our ignorance is crass indeed.
Hence a natural temptation, whenever a micro-organism is found in
connection with a malady, to assume that the latter is directly due to
the former, and to overlook necessary links in the chain of scientific
proof. The Germ Theory offers such a simple explanation of so much that
is profoundly mysterious and obscure that, in spite of every difficulty,
belief in it has come to be with the bulk of medical practitioners—and
so with the public who place implicit confidence in “Medical
Science”—an obsession overwhelming and unapproachable by reason.
The first of these difficulties is the fact that in spite of the most
diligent and persevering efforts, no investigator has ever yet been
able to detect any causative germ whatsoever in some of the most
familiar and prevalent maladies of this zymotic class. Vaccine lymph we
have always with us, and in forms peculiarly well adapted to the methods
of laboratory research. More than twenty years since, the Grocer’s
Company offered a prize of $5,000 to the discoverer of its “germ.” That
prize is still open, and has never been even claimed.
No one has yet discovered any micro-
organism in association with Measles, Scarlatina, Small-pox,
Chicken-pox, and Mumps. One has lately been put forward as the source of
Whooping cough, but proof of the statement is wanting; and the same
with Pfeiffer’s Influenza-bacillus. Pasteur, the Apostle of the Germ
Theory, could detect no microbe (in spite of assiduous search) in
Hydrophobia; not of course a zymotic malady. Of Cancer, some 400
distinct micro-organisms have been proclaimed the cause; but no one
beyond the discoverer has ever accepted this discovery.
Per contra, a micro-organism has been discovered in more or less
frequent association with the lesions of Diphtheria, Tuberculosis,
Cholera, Bubonic Plague, Tetanus, Typhoid Fever, Spinal Meningitis, and a
few more. In each instance it has been put forward as the cause; and on
that assumption a serum or vaccine has been commercially exploited as
cure or as preventive of the particular disease in question. Let us
briefly inquire into the credentials of some of these germs; and
consider how they would satisfy the requirements of genuine Science.
KOCH’S POSTULATES
But first it may be premised that germs in general are of extremely
numerous varieties, and that morphologically these varieties often bear
so close a resemblance to each other, that even a highly-skilled
microscopist has the greatest possible difficulty in distinguishing one
from another by its appearance under the microscope. Also the
micro-organisms found in disease are commonly mixed and blended in
almost inextricable confusion. Hence Professor Koch, of Berlin, the
discoverer of the Cholera and Consumption bacilli, laid down five
postulates with which any germ must comply, before it could be
scientifically admitted the “vera causa” of any malady whatever. At the
time Koch was practically the head of the Bacteriological world, and his
dictum was unhesitatingly accepted by bacteriologists. Apart from
expert opinion, it obviously appeals to commonsense.
In order that a micro-organism may be scientifically held causal, it must—
- Always be discoverable in association with the particular disease.
- Never occur under conditions of health, or in other disease than the one indicated.
- Be capable of cultivation for many generations outside the body of the host.
- Always produce the same disease when subsequently inoculated into the body of another animal.
- Then always be found in the second animal host.
Not a solitary germ yet discovered has succeeded in fulfilling all
these conditions. In fact, no single microbe put forward by
bacteriologists as the cause of a disease has yet complied with more
than one, and—which is a point of particular significance—that one is
the third of the above.
In other words every micro-organism yet found in association with
disease has utterly failed to fulfil four out of five tests which the
leading bacteriologist of his day laid down as absolutely essential
before it could be counted a genuine cause, or held in any sense
etiological. Witness the following examples.
THE BACILLUS OF DIPHTHERIA
The microbe to which Diphtheria has been for the past seventeen years
attributed and whose presence in the throat-mucus now constitutes the
official and sole acknowledged test for the presence of that malady, was
discovered by Messrs. Klebs and Loeffler and is called their name. They
could not detect it in 25 per cent (one in four) cases of undoubted
Diphtheria. See also Osler’s Practice of Medicine, page 138 where Osler,
practically the leader of modern Medicine, admits its frequent absence
even in bad cases.
Since its discovery as above the bacillus has also been found in
abundance in the throat-mucus of innumerable healthy people; and this by
many independent observers. Ritter detected it in 127 perfectly healthy
school children. Hewlett and Murray found it in 15 per cent of children
in hospital with various maladies other than Diphtheria (British Medical Journal, June 15, 1901).
The organism has a very wide distribution. It has been detected
microscopically in the contents of vaccine vesicles, in tuberculous and
emphysematous lungs, in mucus from ordinary catarrhal sore-throat, in
stomatitis, rhinitis, conjunctivitis, in eczema and other skin
eruptions, in gangrene, noma, ozcena, etc.
Injected into the body of another animal the Klebs-Loeffler bacillus
invariably fails to produce disease in any way resembling human
Diphtheria. The horses so treated for the purpose of manufacturing
Diphtheria-Antitoxin from their blood-serum show no symptoms, apart from
general malaise, of that malady. (See evidence of Professor C.J.
Martin, Proc. Royal A-V, Commission, Q. 11897.)
TUBERCULOSIS
The Tubercle-bacillus was discovered by Professor Koch in 1881. He
endeavored to prove that it is the cause of Tubercular Consumption, but
entirely failed to do so; all his conclusions were promptly contradicted
by Professor Middendorp and others. Nevertheless, this microbe has
since been elevated to the baleful potency of a malignant African
fetish. It has caused unhappy consumptives to be shunned like lepers;
is now dangerously threatening the milk trade, the agricultural
interest, and even the general arrangements of industry at large.
The germ does not make its appearance in the sputum of consumptives
until that disease has continued for several months. Dr. H.J. Loomis (Medical Record,
July 29th, 1905), gives the average date of its detection at three and
one-third months from inception, as fixed by the physical signs. Dr.
Muthu’s extensive experience at the Mendip Sanatorium enables him to
affirm that it is not infrequently absent from the expectoration of
patients with very advanced disease and “extensive mischief in the
lungs” (Pulmonary Tuberculosis and Sanatorium Treatment, 1910).
Professor Middendorp denies that the bacillus exists in any
tubercular nodules of recent formation, and prior to the onset of
degenerative processes. Spina, Charrin, and Kuskow failed utterly to
detect it in Acute Miliary Tuberculosis, wherein, were the causal
theory of Koch genuine, it must needs be specially abundant.
A noteworthy element of fallacy in reference to the value of
inferences from experiment with the Tubercle-bacillus upon the lower
animals lies in the fact that most of such experiments take place with
the guinea-pig.
In 1868 Dr. Wilson Fox proved that it was easy to
produce Tuberculosis in that animal by almost any tissue-irritation, and
by inoculation with miscellaneous substances very varied in character.
Eleven of thirteen guinea-pigs became tubercular through the
subcutaneous injection of pneumonic lung-substance, four out of five by
that of putrid muscle, others by the insertion into their tissues of
silver-wire, cotton thread, and the like (Lecture Royal College
Physicians, May 15th, 1868).
Dr. Fox’s conclusions were confirmed by Dr.
Waldenburg and have never been contradicted. They appear to invalidate
the bulk of the “scientific” researches including those most elaborate
and prolonged investigations by the Royal Commission on Tuberculosis.
THE MICROBES OF PLAGUE, CHOLERA, TETANUS, ETC.
The Times of January 13th, 1896, quotes a Report to the Plague
Commission at Agra, by Mr. Hankin, Bacteriologist for the North-West
Provinces. “There was no doubt that cases of Plague occurred among human
beings in which no microbes were visible at the time of death. This
fact was first proved by the members of the German and Austrian Plague
Commission.”
The “Comma bacillus” was discovered by Koch, who proclaimed it to be
the cause of Asiatic Cholera. Dr. Klein, who was about to proceed to
India to investigate the origin of that disease, did not believe in
Professor Koch’s statement and experimentally drank a wineglass of comma
bacilli in “pure culture.” No effect followed; and Dr. Klein remains
alive and well to this day. At Hamburg Pettenkofer and Emmerich
swallowed that actual dejecta of a cholera patient with result similarly
negative. Pettenkofer concluded that “the specific virus of cholera
does not arise from the comma bacillus, but is evolved in the human
organism.”
Cunningham (quoted by Granville Bantock, The Modern Doctrine of Bacteriology,
p. 67) met with cases of cholera free from any traces of the comma
bacillus. Bantock cites one of sudden death from this source at Paris in
which none could be found. The micro-organism occurs in people
suffering from nothing more grave than constipation. A Government
Inquiry into the Etiology of Asiatic Cholera, 1896, says: “Organisms
like comma bacilli. . . can have nothing definite to do with disease. . .
. It is impossible to maintain that the evacuations of a person
affected with cholera contain actually or potentially the cholera poison
in the shape of an organism.”
Tetanus is ascribed to a microbe resident ingarden soil, which gains
access to wounds. That cannot be true, because such wounds among
gardeners and agricultural laborers must be most common, yet they are
very rarely attacked. Also, tetanus not seldom occurs without
external wound; and Dieulafoy has recorded thirty-five cases following
the injection of highly sterilized serum. In India, Italy, and America,
severe outbreaks of Tetanus have followed the use of Diphtheria
Anti-toxin.
The bacillus typhosus, the pretended cause of typhoid fever, is found
in healthy persons, and according to Major Horrocks, R.A.M.A. (British Medical Journal,
May 6, 1911) has no specific character whatever. He finds that it is
easily changed into other forms (B. Coli, B. Alcaligenes, etc.) by
cultivation. It has never been found in the water, to which many
virulent epidemics of typhoid have plausibly been ascribed. Dr. Thresh,
the well-known Medical Officer of Health, told the jury in the Malvern
Hydro case, that he had accidentally swallowed a wineglassful of the
“pure culture” of virulent typhoid bacilli without the smallest
ill-consequence.
On experiments involving the like conclusion, Dr. J. W. Hodge
remarks, “In medical literature I find a number of recorded instances of
the apparently healthy human body having been repeatedly inoculated
hypodermically with pure cultures of the active bacillus typhosus, the
supposed cause of typhoid fever. These fully virulent cultures have also
been injected into the rectum of the human body, and applied to large
abraded areas from which the cuticle had been removed. . . with no other
effects that those resulting from the puncture or abrasion.” He makes a
similar statement about the bacillus of Anthrax; and says that so far
as his knowledge extends, all such experiments with other microbes
reputed pathogenic have been negative (American Journal of Neuropathy, February, 1911).
These remarks are specially pertinent at the present time because of
the recent official order that the whole United States Army is to
undergo inoculation with Anti-Typhoid serum, a remedy resting in toto on
belief that the B. Typhosus is the source of Enteric fever.
It is admitted that the microbes asserted to generate Spinal
Meningitis, Anthrax, Influenza, etc., cannot be detected in all the
victims of these disorders by the most careful search. No pathogenic
germ has ever been found in the air.
MOSQUITOES AND MALARIA
The present position of the favorite official view of a germ as the
cause of Malarial fevers, and conveyed by the mosquito, may be here
glanced at. On the general theory, it may be remarked that Malaria
abounds where the insects are entirely, or almost entirely, absent; as
in the tropical highlands generally and the elevated regions of Rhodesia
(Bantock). That the fever is at its maximum when there are hardly any
mosquitoes about, and at its minimum when these are most numerous. That
the malady is apt to follow a chill, after long years of immunity in
temperate Europe.
Secondly, we note that although the theory has been current for
nearly ten years, wherever it has been acted on, it has totally failed
in actual practice. Wherever operations for the destruction of the
mosquito (per se) have been carried on, as at Miam Mir, for seven or
eight years (Lancet, April, 1909), they have proved useless.
The malady is as prevalent as ever, in spite of the great labor and
sacrifices involved. So far as it is possible to obtain unbiased
official testimony, we learn that only the gross measures of sanitation
count.
II. MICROBES AND SUPPURATION—THE OBSOLETE ANTISEPTIC THEORY
The Antiseptic System of Surgery, to the introduction of which the
late Lord Lister owed his extraordinary fame, was based on the theory
that certain specific micro-organisms cause suppuration in wounds; and
that by destroying them before they could gain access thereto,
suppuration was prevented.
Hence the invention of the Carbolic Spray, and all its accompanying
cumbersome technique, which in the seventies of the last century wearied
the heart of the surgeon, and not seldom killed the patient.
It was eventually discovered that no human power could possibly
devitalise the millions of microbes which gain access to every wound
during the briefest operation. Lord Lister had to confess at Liverpool,
on September 16th, 1896, that his whole theory was erroneous, and that
it was only “the grosser forms of septic mischief” which had to be
reckoned with in surgery. The Carbolic Spray, and even the “Antiseptic
washing and irrigation,” had been authoritatively abandoned by him six
years earlier, with an expression of regret for the introduction of the
former. “I feel ashamed that I should ever have recommended it (the
spray) for the purpose of destroying the microbes in the air.”
Antiseptic surgery was then replaced by Aseptic; which being
translated simply signifies careful and wholesome cleanliness—that and
nothing more. Instead of striving to kill the germs, we severely let
them alone, concentrating all our attention upon that cleanliness of
patient, of doctors, of nurses, and of dressings, which assuredly in
this matter is not merely next to godliness, but is infinitely
preferable.
Lister was wrong, and frankly confessed it. Yet to the end of time
should his fame continue, for he worked indeed a great miracle, which to
those who, like myself, remember the days previous, would seem almost
inconceivable. He actually made surgeons and dressers wash their hands
and carefully cleanse their nails—a thing almost unknown before! A
marvellous transformation there has been. Oh, the mal-odors of the
wounds and the wards, and the busy hands of doctors, students, and
nurses at work therein, during the pre-Listerian period! Oh, the foul
black nails of justly celebrated surgeons, I can remember in that not
very remote epoch!
But for the germs themselves, the “pyogenic” micrococci, the
streptococci and staphylococci, “et iis similia”—these bogeys were
quickly found to be unentitled to the high estate conferred on them by
Lister; and had it not been for medical obsession by the Germ Theory,
must have fallen into utter contempt. It was proved that in all the
natural mucous secretions of the body they exist in myriads. They are
perfectly normal inhabitants, to all appearance perfectly innocuous, of
the bronchial tubes, nose, mouth, throat, etc.
Lister admitted that his carbolic sucked them into its vortex,
carried them into the operation wound in far vaster numbers than would
have penetrated otherwise, and was not strong enough to kill them.
Lockwood found it all but impossible to sterilize the skin of his own
hands, let alone that of the patient completely; and further that on
areas such as the scrotum where micro-organisms specially abound his
operation wounds appeared to heal the better for their presence.
Corrosive Sublimate, the most potent killer of germs known, entirely
precludes healing as every surgeon knows; the wound obstinately
continues raw.
Pus is known to be frequently present without any micro-organism, and
to be readily caused by various chemical agencies such as painting the
skin with iodine, rubbing it with mercury or Croton oil. Of fifty agar
plates prepared from pustules produced in twenty patients by the
last-named, forty-five were perfectly sterile (Kreiblich of Vienna
Experiments in the Production of Pus, quoted by Bantock, Op. Cit., page
161; see also Medical Press and Circular, June 19th, 1901).
With Lister, Lockwood practically concluded that it was only “the
grosser forms of septic mischief” whereof the surgeon had to beware, and
that perfect sterility is impossible in surgery. With wholesome
cleanliness, drainage, and careful subsequent precautions to maintain
dryness—freedom from moisture—of the parts involved in a surgical
operation no suppuration takes place—whether microbes are to a certain
extent excluded (they cannot be entirely so)—or whether they are allowed
to swarm in by the billion. Such is my own experience in a lengthy
hospital career, and it concurs I think with that of every other
practical operator, peritoneal or otherwise.
I mention this last because the rules of peritoneal (abdominal)
surgery differ materially in detail from those of other departments (a
point apt to be overlooked), and inference from one to the other is not
always made. The peritoneal membrane it was that most suffered by
absorption of the poisonous carbolic acid when the spray was in vogue.
Probably it was for this reason that the great Lawson Tait persistently
depreciated Lister. He ascribed the invention of surgical cleanliness to
Lyme. With Bantock, he abominated the spray even when its vogue was
overwhelming, and experience proved the justice of their contention.
III. THE FALLACIES OF THE BACTERIOLOGIST AND THE TRICKS OF TRADE
But unfortunately both in the medical and surgical departments of the
healing art, powerful vested interests had by this time (i.e., 1890,
when Lister at the Berlin Congress officially discarded his
“Antisepsis”) arisen, and, in combination with still more powerful
financial forces outside the faculty, were compelled to prop up the
decaying Germ Theory by every possible method and at all hazard.
Consequently, when Aseptic Surgery displaced Antiseptic, it was
officially proclaimed publicly that the former was only the corollary of
the latter—which it really negatived entirely. Lister was induced to
ally himself with the successful new school, and to confer upon its
edicts and practical prescriptions the unparalleled lustre of his
world-wide reputation. At the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society on June
20th, 1901, the antiseptic method in surgery was solemnly buried in the
presence of its author, but proclamation was also made that the new
Aseptic “was the outcome of the Listerian method.” The proposition is
ingenious; but one might as well describe the locomotive as the outcome
of the stage coach.
So much for surgery. But in medicine, still greater forces were
indissolubly pledged to the maintenance of the belief in special
micro-organisms as the cause of specific diseases. Pasteur has invented
Serum- Therapy, beginning with fictitious cures, whose validity he
signally failed to prove, for Rabies and Anthrax. Millions of capital
were being invested in commercial enterprises for the manufacture of
sera to cure or to prevent human maladies, and sold on the credit of the
Germ Theory. Hence it was impossible to suffer public belief in the
evil potency of Germs—by this time thoroughly established—to be trampled
out by the hard facts of Science.
So nothing was spared that could serve to prevent a perception of the
actual truth. The total failure of every one of these nostrums to
accomplish its ostensible object was concealed; their frequent
dangerous effects disguised, and the statistics of disease manipulated
towards the desired end, or often purposely falsified upon a most
extensive scale. In the whole wide field of Serum-Therapy so far, not a
solitary genuine success has been scored. The fact is categorically
demonstrated by Dr. Wilson’s Report in the recent Blue Book. For all who
can read between the lines it stands admitted to all intents and
purposes, by the Majority Report of the Royal Commission on Vivisection
(q.v.).
THE THERAPEUTIC FAILURE OF SERA AND VACCINES
The most striking example of non-success in a supposed remedy
introduced on the faith of the Germ Theory is afforded by the
Diphtheria- Antitoxin now manufactured and sold in such large quantities
throughout the civilized world. As with the other Sera in the markets
it is not exactly what it professes to be. To the blood-serum of the
inoculated horse must necessarily be added a small quantity of some
chemical preservative—carbolic acid, iodine, formaline, etc.—to prevent
that rapid decomposition which would otherwise quickly ensue. Hence each
hypodermic injection of such agents involves the introduction into the
blood of a minute dose of a powerful, commonly poisonous drug, having
special effects for good or for evil, of its own. It can excite no
surprise therefore when we find that nearly all are prone to cause
sudden death, with a host of minor ill-consequences often of the graver
character.
[Author footnote: For the many evil sequelae of the
Diphtheria-Antitoxin see “The Bacteriology of Diphtheria” by Drs.
Nuttali and Smith, Cambridge, 1908. For the danger of Tubercular
treatment, “Serums, Vaccines, and Toxins,” by Messrs. Bosanquet and
Kyes, 1909. For the bad results of Serum- Therapy in numerous. . .
articles, “Serum Exhibition and Serum Rashes,” by Dr. James Dundas, “The
Hospital,” August 29, 1909. At a discussion of the Royal Society of
Medicine at Brussels, reported in the “Bulletin” for Nov., 1910,
numerous deaths from the injections of various sera were referred to.]
To show a surplus of cures by the Diphtheria-Antitoxin it was only
necessary to introduce an absolutely erroneous mode of diagnosis, which
has since completely falsified all the published statistics of
treatment. Instead of the white throat-pellicle and other obvious
clinical signs whereby practical doctors who knew their work were
accustomed to recognize a case of Diphtheria when they saw it, rarely
making a mistake, the presence or absence of the aforesaid
Klebs-Loeffler bacillus became the sole test. For obvious reasons no
figures of successful treatment had under such circumstances the
slightest pretensions to scientific accuracy; thousands of harmless sore
throats being thus swept into the net, to demonstrate the beneficial
effects of the Antitoxin.
In spite of this most unwarrantable and unscientific proceeding the
annual percentage of deaths from Diphtheria has considerably increased,
since the “cure” was introduced (in 1894). For the ten years previous it
was only 205 per million persons living. In the ten following, the
deaths rose to 235 per million, i.e., in England and Wales.
It only remains to add that Diphtheria is of all contagious maladies
the most easily and promptly curable by simple and innocuous remedies,
well-known to the faculty: Sulphurous Acid having been found the most
efficient in the writer’s own hand. Two hundred and fifty-nine cases
treated by other remedies without a single fatality are reported in the Journal de Medecine Paris, November 24th; 1894. So long ago as 1859, Markinder treated 400 cases of Diphtheria at Gainsborough with only a single death (Medical Record, May 27th, 1899).
Haffkine’s “Vaccine” for Plague may be next considered in view of the
grievous harm it has actually caused, both directly and indirectly. It
is a culture of the bacillus pestis in beef-tea and came into active use
under the inventor’s own superintendence on the outbreak of the
epidemic which occurred at Bombay in September, 1896. A plague-epidemic
dies out of its own accord, if not interfered with, in an average
period of eight months. This one, however, was encountered with the
above “Vaccine,” and has continued ever since, i.e., for fifteen to
sixteen years. From Bombay it has spread over nearly the whole of India.
In 1907, the official mortality return for the year amounted to
1,315,880—that was the high-water mark. From September, 1896, to the end
of October, 1911, the total deaths from Plague—in this single
epidemic—have amounted to 7,621,255. (See official returns.)
And the end is not yet. In 1911, to the end of the October nearly
800,000 victims perished. Recent accounts state that Haffkine’s Vaccine
has at length been given up as useless.
With this ghastly result—from a practical application of the Germ
Theory—may be contrasted the Plague-epidemic which broke out in Egypt
in 1899. No inoculations were resorted to, but by isolation and
commonsense measures of hygiene, the scourge was completely stamped out
in six weeks (British Medical Journal, April 21st, 1900).
There is hardly anything to be said in favor of any one among the
numerous other sera or vaccines which have been brought forward as
remedial or preventive in human and lower animal disease, and are
exploited commercially at a large advertisement outlay. Sir Almroth
Wright (Studies in Immunization, page 301) affirms that Serum-Therapy in general is devoid of any rational basis.
The Royal Vivisection Commission has elicited from medical official
witnesses an unqualified admission of the failure of sera or vaccine,
introduced for Cholera, Consumption (Koch’s Tuberculin), Pneumonia
(Marmorek), Anthrax (Pasteur), Dysentery, Puerperal Fever, and Tetanus.
Statistics adduced as showing the value of the Typhoid-fever
inoculations were completely balanced by others indicating their
inutility, and South African doctors, with practical experience of the
results, emphatically state that they do far more harm than good,
delaying recovery, increasing the mortality, and in no way serving to
prevent the disease (British Medical Journal, April 20th, 1901).
DIAGNOSIS
A very important misuse of the Germ Theory lies in the substitution,
sometimes enforced officially, of artificial and unreliable diagnostic
methods for the previous reliance upon clinical signs. This is in the
highest degree prejudicial to medical education, tending to develop an
academic race of practitioners devoid of practical acquaintance with
their calling as healers of men, relying upon book-knowledge and
artificial tests for disease, bigoted and narrow in an extreme degree.
The fallacy of a microscopic test founded on the presence or absence
of a particular germ, for any special malady whatever, is conspicuous in
every single instance already stated. No microbe can invariably be
detected in cases indisputably of the malady with which its name has
been associated. Every such micro-organism has been over and over again
detected when there could be no suspicion of the malady it was supposed
to bring. Also there is no badge whereby by a pathological microbe can
be differentiated from one confessedly harmless. The former is always
very closely simulated in appearance by sundry varieties or forms of the
latter, and bacteriologists of the highest skill confess themselves
liable to be deceived.
Thus the Klebs-Loeffler bacillus of Diphtheria cannot be
morphologically distinguished, even by bacteriological experts, from
Homann’s bacillus, confessedly innocuous, Koch’s Tubercle bacillus
cannot be discriminated from the harmless Timothy-grass bacillus and the
Smegma bacillus. It also closely resembles the Bacillus Typhosus of
Typhoid, for which the Timothy-grass bacillus is again apt to be
mistaken. The gonococcus is very like common micrococcus catarrhalis of
the nasal cavity, and the diplococcus intracellularis of Weischselbaum,
which is given out as causing Spinal meningitis, though Flexner himself
confesses it is often absent. The Micrococcus Melitensis, the asserted
cause of Malta Fever—said to be due to goats’ milk, though it prevails
where goats are not, and in people who have never drunk their milk—is
admitted to bear a highly suspicious resemblance to ordinary fat
globules. And so on throughout the whole list. [Author footnote: Bacilli
indistinguishable in size, form, and coloration by staining media from
the tubercle-bacillus of Koch were found by Lydia Rabinowitsch
(entrusted by Koch with the investigation) in every sample of butter
purchased in Berlin and Philadelphia. They produced tuberculosis when
injected into the guinea-pig. The only difference stated was that growth
in cultures was quicker and more luxuriant. The fact is significant in
reference to impending legislation on the milk traffic.]
It may be noted that whenever a so-called “pathogenic” germ is
closely mimicked in appearance by others against which no charge of
morbific “lese-majeste” has been brought, and which are assumed to be
harmless, the bacteriologist applies the epitheth “pseudo” to the
latter. Thus we read of a “pseudo” Diphtheria-bacillus, a “pseudo”
Typhoid-bacillus, and I know not how many more. The fact is significant
as well as frequent; at once indicating the unreliability of current
bacteriological tests.
Every practical surgeon or physician who himself works with the
microscope—I fear there are not too many such—will admit the extreme
danger of implicit reliance upon almost any microscopic test in the
diagnosis of disease. Too many fallacies in every direction have to be
reckoned with. I can personally testify to the numerous perfectly
needless operations for supposed Cancer which have been performed in
past years upon organs perfectly free from that fell disease, through
the erroneous interpretation of microscopic indications. And in these
last, resort to high powers of the microscope, such as used in
Bacteriology, and which must obviously vastly enhance the sources of
error, is rarely needed.
THE TRUE POSITION OF THE MICROBE WITH RESPECT TO DISEASE—CONCLUSIONS
The Lancet of March 20th, 1909, in a powerful editorial
confesses the inadequacy of the Germ Theory, and practically throws it
overboard as a scientific explanation of morbid phenomena. It says: “It
is not at all rare to fail to find the causal organism in an individual
case of the disease. . . . Many organisms which are considered causal
are frequently to be found in healthy persons. The organisms of
enteric-fever, of cholera, and of diphtheria may be cited as examples.
When a ‘causal organism’ is injected into an animal, often it happens
that it gives rise to a disease bearing no resemblance to the original
malady.”
No scientist has yet ascertained with precision what part in morbid
phenomena germs really play. The most plausible view is that advanced by
Dr. Granville Bantock in his admirable resume of the subject, to which,
in compiling this article I have been greatly indebted (The Modern Doctrine of Bacteriology,
1902); that they simply act as scavengers, disintegrating the dead or
diseased tissues into their component elements. We only know for certain
that their presence in any given malady is by no means invariable; that
in numerous zymotic diseases many years of assiduous research have
failed to detect a solitary trace of any germs whose absence must
therefore be inferred; that such as have been found cannot be causal,
and can never be made to reproduce the special disease, when inoculated
into animals, apart from the “virus” associated inseparably with them.
The editor of The Lancet states in the article quoted above
that “in many instances”—for which we should read “never”—“the causal
organism is not capable by itself of inducing the disease, and a
‘tertium quid’ must be assumed,” even in the relatively few maladies
which bacteriology has plausibly associated with a special germ. There
is always some unknown quantity beside this, the microbe per se is not
enough.
That is the limit of our positive knowledge, which at present can
deal with nothing beyond gross causes. We see the zymotic fevers always
engendered by some obvious septic condition, or else by some
conspicuous breach of hygienic law. We succeed in preventing them by
sanitation, and by careful heed to the laws of nature. In what element
the contagion which most of them exhibit resides we are absolutely
ignorant; nor do we know anything in minute detail of their first
origin. But however fascinating the hypothesis that they somehow are
caused by the infinitely small organisms which swarm everywhere around,
we cannot legitimately avail ourselves of it, for the simple reason
that science cannot show any even plausible foundation for it, in
ascertained facts.
Experimentation in the laboratory and elsewhere with so-called “pure
cultures” of micro-organisms, casts no light whatever upon their real
nature and functions. They are so infinitely small—many billions, or
even trillions, to the cubic inch—that it is impossible ever to regard
them as perfectly divested of the environment they have carried with
them from the blood, or spinal fluid, or diseased tissues whence they
were originally taken. And even with that the inoculations never succeed
in reproducing the original disease—the inoculated animal may become
ill; but it invariably fails to afford convincing or even plausible
proof that it suffers from Diphtheria, or Malta Fever, or Typhoid, or
whatever the special fever in question may be.
This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Summer 2025
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