Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1882-08-31

We are indebted to the microscope for
many wonderful discoveries in the ami
mated world. 1t has taught us that
there is an almost infinite variety of or
ganized life beneath US; that the water
and the air swarm with hinnumerable be-
ings, too small to be visible to the naked
eye, and that to the presence of these
man is largely indebted for zymotic and
other diseases, of which thousands die
annually. ....fr ....-.-. ...-.i
These pests are not only destructive
to animal but vegetable life; the yiae il
destroyed by them, and the manufacture
of wine SO lessened in many depart
ments of France especially as to plunge
the growers of the grape into poverty
and considerably enhance the cost of
wine. Their depredatioRs are not con
fined to the grape only; many valuable
trees and plants are attacked by them.
and soon wither and die. ......
Bat we doubt whether any microscope
cal discovery of recent years will create
as much losthing and disgust as that
just announced In Washington, that the
common h0rss-fiy Is infested by minute,
snake-like animals, that have their
habitat in Its proboscis, and that, in the
presence of water, or possibly any other
fluid, these disgusting creatures leave
their home in the prOboscis and readily
take to it. Whether these microscopic
animals are purveyors of germ diseases,
or the cause of diseases in themselves,
has yet to be determined. a.I.s
The consciousness that such things
exist, and that they may adhere to any
and all substances on which the fly
alights, will increase the aversion to the
fly, and put every tidy housewife on the
alert to destroy them. The house fly,
owing to this discovery, will no longer
seem to be the harmless though annoy.
ing pest that it is. '''-- -'i---
Even the humanity of Uncle Toby,
who carefully removed the fly from his
cup and released il at the window with
tHe remark LnaG TlseFdwzs-Fos~. Ana.se,h
in the world for both himself and 1t.
would have been severely taxed, had be
known that 1t concealed minute para
sites perhaps of poisonous kind. and
which might by contact be transferred
to his own body. He would;rather have
felt the instructive impulse of boy to
kill the fly, and would probably have
done 1t. .,-.-. .rI
1t was the microscope that diyulged
the presence of infusoria in water. es-
pecially in water that has been standing
any length of time; it was the micro
scope that detected the presence of
bactria in yeast, and indeed in thOus-
and ether substances, and it will be
to that instrument that we
shall owe our knowledge of the fact
that there Is not any substances or form
of matter that is not instinct with life.
each subsisting on the other, from the
one-celled amebi to thelmany-celled and
manifold organism called man.
So infinite in variety is the microsccp- |
ic world, so inconceivably small the
in which life may exist, that it |
gives encouragement even yet to the
theory announced BY q
Dutch mlcrescopist toward the close of
The seventeenth century, and which,
fifty years later, was more widely ac-i
cepted by the scientists and philosophers
and theologians that the doctrine of |
evolution now is as 1t Is likely to be in
fifty years to come. ....
Whether we are any better or happier
for these revelations from the practi-
,ally invisible world, may be doubted;
but as men will continue to pry into the
secrets of nature, and unfold her won
ierful manifestations, there is no escape
from knowledge, agreeable or disagree
able; but of one thing we may be sure,
no ona with sonse of cleanliness about
him will ever find fly in his coffee or
,trangled in the syrup cup, or swimming
q glass of milk, or endeayoring to extri-
cate himself from pat of butter. with
but a feeling of nausea and disgust
Commercial. " |
Al "
A Negligent Conductor.
When a train going West over the |