The Faure storage battery was a very important invention, but not nearly so important a one as was at first supposed. It was an improvement on Planté's battery, and consisted mainly in applying red lead and litharge directly to the positive and negative lead plates, before sending any charging current through the liquid; thus expediting the making of the battery very greatly. The invention was hailed with extravagant rejoicings, even Sir William Thomson being carried away from his habitual equanimity; but serious practical difficulties soon developed that are familiar to most of us, and that have never yet been overcome. In 1880, Koch and Eberth isolated the typhoid bacillus, and Sternberg the pneumonia bacillus. The importance of these two discoveries is not usually appreciated by any but physicians and those who have suffered from these diseases and been cured. Even those who have been saved from having them, especially those in armies who have been saved from having typhoid fever, fail to realize their debt. But the almost perfect immunity from typhoid fever enjoyed by all the enormous armies of the vast World War, compared with the frightful distress and mortality caused by typhoid fever in previous wars, bears eloquent witness to the influence of the great discoveries of those tireless investigators. It may be pointed out here that of all the inventions and discoveries ever made, those made in medical and surgical science, especially in preventive measures, have had more direct and immediate influence on history than contemporary inventions in any other field, save possibly religion. For what is history but the life-story of the human race; and what greater influence can be had than influence upon the health of its component members? The discoveries and inventions made in the field of bacteriology especially, by gaining knowledge concerning the unseen and unheard foes that attack us from within, have lifted civilized man up to a condition of cleanliness and purity, in comparison with which the conditions under which our forefathers lived seem almost repulsive.