The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1891-07-04
OUR INVISIBLE FOES.
The Wonderful Little Creatures
Called Microbes.
Facts Which Read Like tho Widest Fiction
The Attention These Tiny Animals
Are Attracting from Learned
Men of Science

Men of Science.
Wisdom cautions us not to think too
slightingly of small things; but when
things are too small for eyes to sec
| them, we are apt to think that they
concern no one save the infatuated
microscopic. We ordinary people
would be quite content to ignore thcn,
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
ind destroyed more property than have
oil the famous soldiers from Siscra 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. I"
It 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 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,"
partakc of the nature of animal and
plant
AS sunfower develops from seed,
or an oak from an acorn, the microbe
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
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, 1.-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 tho
soil, and these arc 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-