Thus the germ, bacillus, or microbe, as a direct _cause_ of disease is an exploded fallacy. They are now recognized as the _result_ of disease--_not the cause_: releasing irritants perhaps and possibly carriers or transmitting mediums to other diseased or predisposed organisms.
It follows accordingly that Sero-Therapy or Inoculation with specific serums derived from such germs, as a preventative of disease is simply a pernicious farce; "pernicious," since the introduction of such poisons by inocculation into the blood constitutes in itself a serious menace to life and health.
This has never been more clearly demonstrated than in the present singularly futile efforts of the Regular Medical Faculty to stay the on-rush of the Influenza Epidemic or to save or safeguard its victims--a fact which compels the people in their thousands to turn to the less pretentious but more successful members of the eclectic or Irregular schools among whom both help and healing may be found.
And this is the history of the Influenza germ:
The bacterial criminal was located. We know it, for the discovery was officially proclaimed and vouched for by the press with all due pomp and circumstance. True, it was "so minute as to be _invisible to the most powerful microscope_;"--but it was sensed by science, none the less, and handed over captive, for "culture" to the _manufacturing chemist_. Inoculation followed freely--the people in their thousands and our gallant troops alike submitted to the mandate of the powers that be--the soldiers voiceless and under penalty.
America breathless, awaited the result. There was none.
Finally scare-heads in the Press astonished the land. They were these: "_Medical World is Baffled by the 'Flu'._"--"_Exhaustive Experiments Leave Doctors Mystified._"--"_Every Test a Failure._"--"_Explosion of Accepted Theories Causes Science to Grope for Light._"
It appears that, through the heroism of a _hundred_ of our naval men who volunteered for the purpose at the risk of life, the Medical Authorities in desperation were enabled to try every possible method of infection with the alleged Influenza Germs, our boys submitting to inoculation and even to the repulsive ordeal of introduction into the nose and throat of diseased mucous from and close contact with coughing and spitting bed patients in the severest forms of the disease. The experiments were made simultaneously at San Francisco and Boston under the direction of Surgeons McCoy and Goldberger of the U.S. Health Department and the Naval Authorities.