The Klebs-Tommasi and Dr. Sternberg's report, as summarized in the
Supplement No. 14, National Board of Health Bulletin, Washington, D.C.,
July 18, I would cordially recommend to all students of this subject.

I welcome these observers into the field. Nothing but good can come from
such careful and accurate observations into the cause of disease. For
myself I am ready to say that it may be that the Roman gentlemen have
bit on the cause of the Roman fever, which is of such a pernicious type.
I do not see how I can judge, as I never investigated the Roman fever;
still, while giving them all due credit, and treating them with respect,
in order to put myself right I may say that I have long ago ceased to
regard all the bacilli, micrococci, and bacteria, etc., as ultimate
forms of animal or vegetable life. I look upon them as simply the
embryos of mature forms, which are capable of propagating themselves
in this embryonal state. I have observed these forms in many diseased
conditions; many of them in one disease are nothing but the vinegar
yeast developing, away from the air, in the blood where the full
development of the plant is not apt to be found. In diphtheria I
developed the bacteria to the full form--the Mucor malignans. So in the
study of ague, for the vegetation which seems to me to be connected with
ague, I look to the fully developed sporangias as the true plant.

Again, I think that crucial experiments should be made on man for his
diseases as far as it is possible. Rabbits, on which the experiments
were made, for example, are of a different organization and food than
man, and bear tests differently. While there are so many human beings
subject to ague, it seems to me they should be the subjects on whom the
crucial tests are to be made, as I did in my labors.

As far as I can see, Dr. Sternberg's inquiries tend to disprove the