The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-09-26


OF starch always hangs in the air How
/ ever, the dust that blows through the
streets, which settles upon furniture and
makes work for the housewife. contains
ever so many other things besides starch.
rake small pinch of it at random and
examine it at leisure. Perchance you will
discover among it fiber of wood, a scale
or human epidermis, fragment of the
1 mar OF dog, a piece of an Insects claw
the shell of an animalcule and the spore
OIL plant awaiting a proper resting place,
with the necessary dampness to reproduce
its species
Theses are all organic substances, animal
or vegetable. Dust contains much inor-
| ganlc matter, particularly small particles
OF silica. On account of their size and
shape such particles were for long time
mistaken for eggs of some kind, but this
notion was finally exploded by making
chemical analyses of the alleged eggs.
! The history of single one of these frag-
! ments would be most interesting to know.
Ever so long ago perhaps it was part of
a rock. The waves wore it away from
the parent stone and threw it into heap
of sand on the shore After a while the
wind caught it and flung it upon the up
land. Rain took it from the ground and
hurried it along to river. The river car
r1ed 1t to the sea. From the sea water it
was taken by an oyster TO build the lat
ter'S shell The mollusk was caught and
eaten, and the shell, being thrown away,
was trampled upon, powdered and dis
persed by the breezes Thus the parti-
Gle whose story is here related was set
ahOat in the atmosphere, to fall at length
upon your library liable and to afford a
subject for speculation beneath your mi
croScOpe
As you walk down the street on one of
these breezy autumn days a cloud of dust
is blown in your face almost sitting YOU
1t is mixture consisting largely of small
fragments of sand. But, if you will take
a pinch of it home and subject it to exam
nation, you will find that it contains an
extraordinary variety of other things,
such as the broken fibers of plants, pollen,
fine hairs, tibers of clothing and other
fabrics, particles of lime and SCOT, the
pulverized eXcreta of various domestic
animals, ashes and clusters of different
kinds of micro organisms
When ray of sunlight streams into
darkened room it reveals the finer dust
particles which always fill the air,
though ordinarily invisible to the eye.
DIR. Pruden, who has made a study of
this subject, says that the PARTICLES in
question consist mostly of fragments of
vegetable and animal fibers, such as cot
ton and wool, and of an enormous variety
of micro-organiSmS, singly or in masses,
such as bacteria and the spores of mold
plants. Such are the ''motes in the sun
beam, respecting which so many poetic
ideas have been expressed. Not few of
them are germs capable of producing
diseases of various sorts if they happen
to find Judgment in the human system.
The authority above quoted says that
with every twenty breaths a human being
inhales from II to 376 germs, together
with a varying amount of inorganic mat
ter. In a town, of course, the micro-or-
ganisms are much thicker than in the
comparatively pure country air. Such
foreign particles are mostly caught in the
mouth, nose and upper throat or swallow
ed, while certain number pass into the
air tubes or lungs. But to drive out all
intrusive germs and particles nature has
established a wonderful arrangement.
The interior walls of the windpipe and
bronchial tubes are lined with sort of
MOSAIC of tiny cells. Each of these cells
stands on end and has sort of beard of
very small hairs at it's extremity. This
beard serves as a broom, with which the
little cell is sweeping night and day. So
long as life stays in the body these thous-
ands of sweepers go on sweeping all for
eign material up toward the mouth. In
fact, they usually keep at it for a long
time after death has arrived, being the las
portions of the body to give up and diet
Floating about the body with the blood
are numerous cells which seem to go
around on their own hook. In the lungs
they are found in great numbers. When
they come across any disease germ or 9TH
er foreign particle, they eat it up or car
~ it away to some place where it cannot
do any harm. Thus they serve the pur-
pose of scavengers. Unfortunately, so
many wicked germs are floating about in
the dust that occasionally they make
their way into the system of healthy
person and cause trouble. Most dreadful
of all such micro-organisms is the bacil-
lus of consumption, which breeds in the
human lungs and destroys them. Cholera
has been exciting much dismay of late,
but it is complaint of trifing impor-
lance compared with consumption. In
Europe 1900 persons die every day of con
sumption, while in the United States the
same disease kills 100, 900 people year
If you want to get notion of the prev
alence of germs i'll the air, set a glass of
fcesh water on the mantelpiece and leave
it there for three or four days At the
end of that time it will be covered with
sort of scum which looks like a layer of
dust. This scum, when examined under
a microscope, will be found to be mass
of living micro-organisms.
In ordinary dust are many living micro
scopic animals, such as the rotifers.
IneSe uJIle creatures may De ufleu IOf an
indefinite period, but will come to life
again when moistened. 1t is said that
individuals have been desiccated and re-
vived again as often as fifteen times A
romantic writer has told the story of
rotifer which, having seen something of
life in a gutter at ancient Memphis, was
blown as dust to Carthage, carried as
dust to Rome, thence conveyed to Con
stantinople, was shaken from the code of
Justinian, accompanied the crusaders to
Jerusalem and was eventually brought
back from the Holy Land by modern ex-
cursionist to see more of life in a gutter
in New York.
Peouliarities of the siamese.