The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1891-05-02
OUR INVISIBLE FOES.
The Wonderful Little Creatures
Called Microbes.
Facts Which ReaU Like the Widest Fiction
The Attention These Tiny Animals
Are Attracting from Learned
Men of Science.

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Wisdom cautions us not to think too
slightingly of small things; but when
things are too small for eyes to see
them, we are apt to think that they
concern no one save the infatuated
microscopic. We ordinary people
would be quite content to ignore them,
provided only that they would let us
alone in return. But the small things
called microbes" will enter into no
such compacts. However tiny they are,
no one can call them insignificant, for
they have probably killed more people
and destroyed more property than have
all the famous soldiers from Sisera to
Bismarck.
Microbes, nowadays, lay down the
law to physicians, surgeons, hospital
nurses and architects. Some of the
greatest minds of our time spend their
best efforts in studying the manners
and customs of these microscopic be-
ings, and the books and pamphlets
which have been written about them
are numerous enough to make library
in themselves. These have all been
published since 1860, and most of them
have appeared within the last decade;
for though nature has kept a large sup
ply of microbes constantly on hand
since the days of Adam, and though
they have been all around us, and even
within us, yet until very recently they
have eluded the observation of the
whole human race.
The term "microbe" is new one,
and probably it will not be found in the
readers Webster or "Worcester"
1t is derived from two Greek words
meaning "small life" Microbes are
living things so minute that forty
billions of them may weigh less than
one grain" They are generally sup
posed to be plants; but some students
believe that they possess to a very slight
degree, some animal senses and powers.
Among organisms so small, and so low
in the scale of creation, the line of
division between the animal and the
vegetable kingdom is not clearly drawn.
1t may be that these microscopic be-
ings, like the so-called coral ''insect,"
partake of the nature of animal and
plant
AS a sunfower develops from seed,
grows from tiny, round "spore."
These spores are everywhere, and SO
are the microbes, which are spores
grown up. They float in the air in
myriads, and they can be distinguished
from dust, under the microscope, by
their forms. They are washed down by
falling rain, and the first drops of a
shower are full of them. The number
of these little organisms in the atmos-
phere varies according to the hour, the
season, the temperature, the humidity,
or the force and direction of the wind.
A French scientist has discovered that
they are very abundant about eight
o'clock in the morning. Their number
decreases until noon, and then increases
again towards sunset "At about
eleven o'clock p. m.," says the natural
list, "the outdoor air is more impure
than at any other hour in the twenty
four; and hence people who are early
to bed have science as well as proven
bal philosophy on their side"
Some microbas are found in the cells
of water-plants. Many dwell in the
soil, and these are useful in changing
inert mineral substances-quartz, mica
or hornblende = into food for our
flowers and vegetables.
All the tissues of healthy living ami
mails contain microbes in large num-
bers. Some float in the blood of fishes.
Some salt-loving forms live in the tear
ducts, and some inhabit those fine tubes
which carry perspiration to the surface
of the body. There are some in the
stomach, and many in the intestines
The blood is free from them, except in
two diseases anthrax and recurrent
fever; but the saliva is full of them at
all times. In fact, each of us is liter
ally "a host in himself"
A few microbes dwell in fresh water;
Btagnant water teens with them. They
are mixed with mud, dust or snow.
They flow in every rivulet, float as
notes in every sunbeam, and fly by on
every breeze. They are scattered every
where; and some, favored by chance,
survive, and produce countless progeny.
If these unavoidable little things
were all poisonous, the human race
would have come to an end long ago;
but many of them, fortunately for us,
IRE perfectly harmless. Some spare us,
but injure our possessions. These are
mischief-malkers which spoil meat and
sour cream. Stagnation, death and de-
cay swarm with life when viewed
through lenses.
These little spoilers are checked, or
killed outright, by cold, They are as
sensitive to it as those ants which the
scientist Tyndall observed on the Al
pine slope. The sun was warm, but
here and there, on the noun
tain side, there were patches OF
snow. The ants were running about
in the warm grass, and ON the warm
rocks close by. Tyndall put some OF
them on the snow, and in a few seconds,
after some languid struggles, they be-
came paralyzed, and lay as If dead.
When they were moved back to the
warm rock they Immediately became
lively again; but when they were re.
placed upon the snow the death-likc
numbness seized upon them once more,