It has been said, we do not see after death,--the {174} interlacing mycilium, or the sprouting pileus; therefore the fungi are not the agents of disease--it has been said that carbonic acid and alcohol are not found as products of diseased action--consequently disease is not a fermentative process. "In all cases," says Liebig, "where the strictest investigation has failed to demonstrate the presence of organic beings in the contagion of a miasm, or contagious disease, the hypothesis that such beings have cooperated, or do cooperate in the morbid process, must be rejected as totally void of foundation and support." Much as I admire the genius of this great man, it is difficult to refrain from remarking, that I doubt if any of his great discoveries would have been made, if, in the first instance, hypotheses had not formed the basis of all his researches. It has been said, "that casual conjunctions in chemistry, gave us most of our valuable discoveries:" and it is from casual conjunctions that hypotheses are usually formed, the working out proves either their fallacy or their truth, but to say that an hypothesis has no foundation, until demonstrated to be true, is rather knocking down argument. And who, let me ask, has been more prolific of hypotheses than our continental neighbour? Yet he, according to his mode of reasoning, would sweep away all such words from the vocabularies of philosophers. What foundation has the chemical hypothesis of disease, when it fails to explain the most important element {175} of contagious and infectious diseases: viz. the reproductive property of their germs? It is perhaps necessary to say something in explanation of the sudden deaths arising from morbid poisons. They may occur from two causes. One being the result of a concentrated amount of poison germs being inhaled into the lungs, and acting as an ordinary toxic agent; and the other, which I put only hypothetically, the consequence of the rapid evolution of gas in the vessels arising from a sudden decomposition of blood, as it passes through the lungs. The only authority I have for this supposition, is the fact that the blood after death, from pestilential affections, is found to be far advanced towards decomposition; that in Paris last year, two patients were bled while suffering from Cholera, and with the small quantity of blood which flowed, bubbles of air also escaped:[70] and besides this, it was demonstrated by Mr. Herapath, that ammonia was given off from Cholera patients, both by the lungs and skin. These facts, though they are not conclusive, nevertheless render it probable that such an explanation is not entirely out of reason--especially too, when we know how fatal are the effects of uncombined air, when it enters the vessels near to the heart. * * * * * {176} SECTION III. WHAT RESULTS DO WE OBTAIN FROM THE EFFECTS OF REMEDIAL AGENTS, IN PROOF OF THE HYPOTHESIS?