ABSTRACT
The air as usual was blamed for the frequently disastrous condition of open sores. Not once or twice in the course of the history of discovery the air has been blamed for ill effects when the source of the trouble was something quite different. The example of supposing that the air was the source of some particular thing when that was something totally different is in connection with the origin of life itself. It all looked as though the air was to blame, for if the flask of broth was left open to the air, life appeared in the broth; and even if the air in the flask was corked up there were still evidences of vitality in the organic contents. The air seemed to have been the cause of the living things. We know that pure air is very beneficial to wounds; like all living things, wounds are the better of fresh air.
