Book Reviews

Abstract

“To show some continuity in disease, to evolve a little order out of the existing chaos,”these were the objects which led the author to write this book. He collects in-oculable diseases, and arranges them in a genealogical table, which is suggestive, to say the least of it. Tuberculosis is shown to be descended directly from scrofula, and scrofula from syphilis, which in turn is regarded as having descended from leprosy. Other diseases are supposed to be connected in a similar manner, though the grounds upon which the supposition is based are not very firm in many cases. The chief point to which the arguments lead is that “every contagious or infectious disease, by either the formation of a hybrid, or by hereditary transmission of the individual modification, tends to eradicate itself.” The author is strongly in favour of the establishment of institutes for the purpose of research into the bacteriology, etiology, epidemicity, and sequence of diseases. As there is a dearth of human subjects upon which to experiment, he suggests that convicted murderers should be given the option of death or the probability of leading a comparatively comfortable existence in a bacteriological institute. It has been said that “the worst use you can put a man to is to hang him”; and certainly, if a murderer were used as a medium for the cultivation of bacteria, he would expiate his offence in a very suitable manner.