Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1881-02-15

SDAY, FEBRUARY
, pond You transform into comparative
ly stagnant water what was swiftly
flowing river, bearing along on its cur
rent large quantity of earthly matter!
and salts, which, experiment has de
: monstrated, will soon oxygenize and de
odorize and render harmless the mos
!, offensive varieties of sewage. The stag
nant pond kills all vegetation not ma
turally aquatic. We once watched thu
slow death through this agency of {
\ huge New England elm, graceful
enough to be the scene of q poets dream
>. it took just six weeks. In addition tx
the flow of water which is arrested 8
multitude of other things are caught
dead plants, dead animals, and the
pond itself begins to produce new kinds
of animals and vegetables under the new
conditions. Presently an unusually dry
|-or, as the Scotch say, 'drou thy"-
season comes, as 1t is sure to come in q
long cycle of changing years. The
manufacturer draws down" his reser.
voir OF reserve. In place of the clear.
bright surface of the water, there ap-
pears broad. black band of oozy mud,
saturated with dead vegetable matter,
and teeming with countless myriads Of
animal organisms, who, having had no
notice tOquit served upon them, sudden
ly find that all there Is left them is to
die: and here again is provided on q
Gigantic scale our atmospheric vegetable
solution, and our albuminous animal
solution adapted to the production of
millions on millions of saccharomyces
or bacteria-each, after his kind, as in
exOrably as smallpox virus produces
smallpox. In due time the air here
about is filled to repletion with ''germs''
or spores" and our next step is to ex-
anime their exact influence on the hu-
man frame fs9li Jf9a -ai ~ tsss
In the healthy human body, glucose
is found in the juices of the liver, in the
chyle, the blood and the lymph. Albu-
men is found abundantly in the plasma
of the blood, in the lymph, the pericar
dial and aphalo-rachidian fluids, and
albuminous matters are found abund
antly in every region aud in nearly ev.
cry organ of the body.
Now let man pass through our sur
charged zone of infusoria, and the
stronger his lungs and the more power
full his frame, the better his chance to
breathe in the bad air. In the present
state of knowledge, it goes without say
ing, that he is a promising candidate
for series of most unpleasant expe-
riences-whether they take the form of
fever and ague, dumb ague. typhoid
fever diphtheria, cerebro-spinal-menin
gifts, or some other of the recognized
malarial diseases. In just what way
the bacteria do their work in the living
body has not been demonstrated, but
that out of hundred persons exposed
to their influence, large number will
be attacked by some one of the ailments
above named, is as certain as that a
number of persons will have small pox
if you smut up hundred unvaccinated
individuals in a close room, for twenty
suffering from that disease Of the hum
in order to fulfil their hideous mis-
sion the small pox germs must fiud the
| system of their victim in Just the right
condition precedent" The grain of
corn takes no root on stony ground
Exactly what it is that constitutes q
defence against the onset of malarial
spores we do not know, but facts are not
wanting to support the belief, that per
sons who are overworked, persons who
are underfed those who live in poorly
warmed and poorly ventilated rooms,
| shut out from that mOdicum of light
and air which should be the rightful por
t-tion of every human creature and those
whose vital powers are depressed by
anxiety or grief, or the ever eating wor-
ry of fighting off want-all these and
many more whose condition would rate
under par, afford the prepared soil,
while blood poison often swiftly slays
in brief typhoid attack the most ford
and robust of men, so that high health
even is no security.
Enough has been said to furnish q
priori ground for saying that these fer
ments enter the body and there set up
their Transforming action and no doubt
the age whose vital microscopy is led by
such investigators as Pasteur, will yet
wiring forth the secret of "How they
do it," Meantime there are circum-
stances surrounding the action of these
germs that are perfectly patent to the
least trained of observers. Those who
dwell in malarial regions know that the
danger of inhaling enough bad air to
ensure an attack of sickness, is greatly
enhanced by nightfall. Let us suppose
that we have a tumbIer of muddy water
the water representing the atmos-
phere and the particles of earthly mat
ter the bacteria of blood poison. If the
water remains at rest, presently the par
ticles subside and form layer of mud
at the bottom of the glass. An anala.
gous change takes place when, by the
withdrawal of the SUMS rays, the air is
suddenly cooled and its diffused mois-
ture condensed and carried downwards
in the form of. dew, bearing with it
myriads of fateful germs, SO that the
person who is compelled to pass through
| the lowest stratum of the air after dark
has his chances of being made sick
greatly multiplied, and the superior
healthfulness of sleeping above the
ground floor has been 80 long demon
strated that to mention it is repeating a
stale truism. A pin lying in the mud
deposit at the bottom of the glass, and
a pin horizontally suspended an inch
above and parallel to it, will aptly rep
resent the relative advantage of the
two situations. Is it any wonder that
the cellar population of cities are swept
off by thousands when the right condi
tions exist to quicken into life the ene-
my and is it any wonder that the fatal
gums OAcus ~ udy Uo, III q SIuIu,
should find their way into the palatial
mansion, which, though on a wide and
sunny street, is not so far away that the
winds of heaven cannot bring the
scourge which visits alike the lofty and
the lowly? For, depend upon it, there
is nothing in the wide universe more
radically democratic and levelling than
malaria. Verify, bad air is no respecteI
of persons. H. M. P.
Rev. Jabez Lamar Monroe Gu rry, d.
D., LII. D., the newly elected agent OF
the Peabody Education Fund, was born
in Lincoln, Ga, June 5, 1925, and is
consequently in the fifty-sixth year OF
his age. He graduated at the University
of Georgia in 1S43, and at Dane Law
School Harvard College) 1845 He
served in 1S46 as Texan ranger in the
Mexican war. In 1847, 1858 and 1856
he was a member of the Legislature ol
Alabama in 1856 democratic presi-
Dental elector: from 1857 to 1861 mem