The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1885-10-23
pARAs,TicAL.


PAHASJTICAIs
The Poison which Il Potent In Matters
Of Human Health.
Il Is singular thing to those Of our
number who think knowledge begins
with MS to find that the germ theory, e
it is styled. was propounded and dis
cussed more than two hundred years
ago as one of the hypothesis accounting
for the plague, that otherwise unac-
countable visitation, and that in the en-.
SUNG century Reaumur, Linneus, and
other scientific people quite fully &C
cepted it, SO far as its progress was then
apparent.
The existence Of microscopic life il
something that was revealed to us in the
first days of the microscopes fit and
proper use. and it is not impossible that
discovery will yet 20 very much farther
in that direction. When we find that
minute organisms. hardly more than
infinitesimal bright points under the
strongest lens, exist in the centre of a
lump of chalk rent from the very mid
die OF some great mass, full of vitality,
and capable of producing important
Preventative changes in substances with
which they come in contact, we can
form some approach to q conception of
the universally of life, and of the diff
Guilty. if not the impossibility, of escap-
ing its most disastrous forms. That
much of this life is serviceable and BEN
eficial is apparent. and that much is also
injurious and poisonous is equally ap-
parent 1t seems almost like an asser-
ton of positive malevOlent force in the
world. this poisonous microscopic life.
when viewed with reference to its pos
sibilities, in the multitude of deathlv
diseases thus created, and in the fact
that just before death, and not Just after,
t!le putrefactive poison is often found to
have begun its malignant work; but as
nobody seriously doubts that good is to
overcome evil in the whole cosmos, so
the determination of these poisonous
powers is something to be looked for,
and to be worked for. by the doctrine
of exclusion. by the elision of favorable
circumstances of development, the
elimination of the malevOlent germ
from among created things by the de-
structiOn of the conditions which nur-
ture it and favor its continuance and
propagation. till the disease-produciDg
germ shall one day become as extinct as
the dodO.
Every physician knows that bacteria
are to be found swimming along their
fatal way in the veins of patients in ty.
phOid. scarlet, puerperal and other fe-
vers, to say nothing of smallpox. diph-
liberia, measles, septicamia, and the
rest. that they are of material substance.
and that they propagate each after its
kind and not after another, showing ac-
tive force and individual existence.
This individual existence and continu-
ing active force. in fact. is seen to exist
in the earliest and most minute form of
life, in the initial atom of bioplasm. as
one may say. The old distich in rela-
ton to the great heas that have little
fieas ito worry and to bite 'em, while
little heas have lesser fieas, and so nd
minimum" if possibly vulgar, is eer-
tainly true, and shows that the idea of
the animal parasite is not at all novel
one. Even the little fly has its parasite,
that may be observed when he dies on
the window-pane. and hangs glued there
in a tiny, fuzzy mould.
The capabilty for evil, not alone in
matters of human health, but even in
the financial affairs of the world, which
these infinitesimal atoms of life exert. is
to be understood from the circumstances
that the muscadine, the parasite of the
has cut down production of
silk in France from an annual amount
Of q hundred and thirty million francs
to thirty millions only. The oidium
some time since rs good rs
the vine in MADEIRA. many
Of the vineyards there having been re-
planted with the supposedly vet unin-
fected vines of California; and the smut
in wheat and the rust in cotton are para
sitical concerns that every year do their
own damage.
Parasitical growth must needs ALWAYS
be an unhealthy growth, since it is diff
cult to believe that anv created thing |
has more life than it needs for its own
uses. and consequently has none to give
away and supply the wants and uses OF
lhO PStuSAtC. ~ hFOiu
growth. or to destroy it. then. demands
our best efforts, let us find it where wa
may; and regarding it as . malevolent
and malignant enemy, it is something
curious to see that the cleanliness which
is next to goodness is its only extermi..
natOr. Plenty of water. then plenty Of
plenty of air-the great cleans.
ing processes of nature-will be our
safeguards against our general enemies.
the especial enemy needing still more
especial measures. People who see par.
ticular visitations of an angry Provi-
dence in the mortal diseases that roo
their homes of their chiefest treasures
should look to it first, and make sure
that they themselves are not the angry
providence. with ehoked drains, foul
closets, decayiDg vegetable heaps in un.
used and unaired cellars, or with un.
cleansed refrigerators. the gathered
moisture on whose interior walls par.
takes of the nature of slime and poisons
the milk the children drink. If we Gan
not escape the cruel enemy altogether.
We can yet by vigorous concerted effort
make his approaches. so difficult as to
hin his numbers for want of food. and
secure perhaps some portion of indem.
nitv for the future, il not for our more
immediate selves. for those that am yet
10 come.-Harper's Bazaar.