THE GERM THEORY | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 3, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 14.

“THE GERM THEORY.”

The “germ theory” of disease seems to be in about the same condition as the evolution theory of man, according to the Medical Tribune, quoted by the Medical Brief and other medical journals. The former not long ago said:—

“Despite the zeal and even the fury with which the germ theory in this, its latest appearance, has been promulgated, there are missing links between it and the unequivocal facts. Its strongest foundations are only assumed. The notion that the atmosphere is forever swarming with germs of bacteria and other microbial products, ready to rush into wounds, into the lungs of every breathing thing, into our water and kneading-troughs, like the frogs of Egypt, and to enter the pores and thru the stoppers of glass bottles, is purely a guess without a solitary fact to sustain it, except such as are found in the interpretation of which the guess is taken as established fact. It is a plausible theory but unproven.”

“The harmlessness of the microbe may be fairly regarded as an established fact. Experimenters have separated the various micro-organisms from the medium in which they subsisted, and inoculated healthy persons with them, without thereby in any case inducing disease; while, on the other hand, others were inoculated with virus in which were no microbes, and diseases were the result. The actual fact appears to be that the malady and disorganization are first, and the micro-organism afterward. This is in analogy to other facts observed in the world of nature. If a tree falls in the forest and begins to decay, straightway there appears a multitude of creatures in great variety to devour it out of the way. So, too, when an animal dies, all manner of repulsive things will congregate about it as their prey. Yet we never reason upon the matter like the typical Irishman when viewing a decaying carcass; ‘Look at the poor creature and the maggots,’ cried he; ‘sure they killed it entirely.’”