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“GERMS” OF INFECTION.
DR. H. CHARLTON BASTIAN, in a letter on the controversy between himself and PROFESSOR TYNDALL about “Spontaneous Generation,” quotes from one of the learned Professor’s recent lectures on that subject, the statement that the air of the Royal Institution has been for some time “filled with a virulently infecting atmosphere.” There scarcely needs a chemical philosopher, with his tests and instruments of nice analysis—detective of nasty impurities
—to tell us that. It is too well known to frequenters of the Temple of Science in Albemarle Street, especially from experience in the Lecture Theatre on Friday evening meetings. So long ago as in FALADAY’S time, even when FARADAY was lecturing, its air, impure from ill ventilation, could send listeners to sleep. So now they may sometimes nod, although listening to TYNDALL. The only wonder is that the atmosphere of the Royal Institution, replete with putrifiable germs, does not infect everybody who ventures to breathe it with putrid fever from the Professor’s various hay infusions. The question “Do you boil your hay?” in suburban circles, where hay-fever is a favourite complaint about this time, will soon become as pertinent and as prominent as Mus.
WEDLAKE’S “Do you bruise your oats ?“ used to be in the advertisement columns of the newspapers.