Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-03-01

1
the hopes engendered thereby. We
tally one in the peoples cause. Who's
next?
EPIDEMICS AND SANITARY RE-
| FORM
The Theological Medium for the JAN
uary quarter has an interesting and in
structive article on "Epidemies and
Sanitary Reform from the pen of DR..
J. Berrian Lindsey, of this city-a
subject that eminently deserves the at
tention of the press and the educated
classes of society. Faith goes before
works. and when well founded, is al
ways encouraging and salutary. DIR.
Lindsey says: 81 firmly believe that
war, famine and pestilence will disap-
pear from among men; and of these it
is probable that pestilence will first be
shorn of its terrors." To Danish all
war, all restitution, and all pestilence
from Christian nations will be a noble
achievement, and the thought so clear
" and firmly enumerated, shows not
only student in advanced science and
a sound thinker, but mind that has
all confidence in infinite goodness.
Since the great plague in Athens, $50
years before Christ, so graphically de-
scribed by Thucydides, and cited at
length by DR.. Lindsey, important
sanitary reforms have been secured.
Progress long past and recent, in learn
ing the causes of malignant and fatal
diseases and their prevention, are
pledges that our knowledge nthis sub
ject viii continue to extend until pesti-
lence, like horn spoons and horns for
drinking beer and whisky, viii live only
in history. Under the Justinian code,
creditors could, in default Of payment,
and in the absence of property, dis
member the body of debtor to satisfy
their pecuniary claim, and a child In
growing from its smallest embryo state
up to manhood does not advance more
regularly than society from its infancy
to its distant maturity. In the matter
of preventing contagion, war and des-
titution, society is in the blind puppy
state, able to make some noise, but not
to see the cause of poverty, yellow fever
and cholera. This blindness is not
born to last always, although Its vast
age is something marvellous. Micro
scopes tell more new and important
facts relating to organic and inorganic
bodies, and the great struggle for life
between living beings, plants and
animals that subsist largely on
each other, than every thing be-
fore invented or known by man.
Some thirty years ago the microscopic
fungals that attack and kill wasps in
the West Indies, caterpillars in New
Zealand, aud silkworns and their
parents in France, become well known.
The silk-growing and manufacturing
interest being large, involving the we'll
being of millions of inhabitants, has
led to the study of the muscardine or
silkworm parasite more closely perhaps
than any other. The molecular spores
in the system of the female pass into
the vital cells that form the starting
point Of every egg to form a silkwOrm
that she lays. In this case, a well
known hereditary disease passes from
parent to her offspring by the germ of
one being living in the germ Of another,
before the latter leaves the body of its
mother. But parasites subsist quite as
well in the blood-and organs of males
as in those of females; and as the male
must fertilize every germ or egg, the
spores of any parasite in his system
may pass and often do pass from his
blood into that Of a new generation.
In this way all hereditary taints and
maladies may descend not exclusively
from the mother or thefather, but from
both, or either. 1t is a curious fact
that pestilence most severe on man, is
still more destructive of house flies,
born IN filth, whose home is a dung
heap. There is an unseen microscopic
vitality at work, overlooked by medical
men who do not use the microscope.
The fungus that destroys caterpillars,
siIkworms, wasps and blowing flies, is
typical of that human enemy that
'.walketh at MONDAY" 1t is life in vast
numbers against life in comparatively
g .gantic proportions. In one seed of
wheat there are some four million
living germs Of smut, every oneof which
is capable of spelling another seed of
wheat next year, if planted with the
grain. These spores are 50 small that
they pass as easily as water into the
pores IN swollen, growing seed wheat,
and finally through the ceil-walls which
If not disturbed, would contain grams
Of starch or particles of gluten and al
bumen; but in place of these elements
Of good bread, there is found black
mass of poisonous microscopic spores.
The facility with which one substance
passes into another should be credited,
if we would understand the principles
of any sanitary reform whatever. Few
substances resistcompression more than
water when confined, yet one may put |
a pound of common salt into about a
pint of water and not increase the vol
ume of the water particle. This done,
there are still spores left to holdalarge
amount of other salts, like epson and ]