The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-10-17

The statement was made a. few days ago
that the health officers of Chicago, by ex-
posing properly prepared plates of glass for
a few minutes at certain points, captured
some thousands Of microbes of kind
which were engaged in propagating catarrh
and sore throat among the unsuspecting
people of that city. Our own Board of
Health has been dealing recently with diph-
iberia microbes and the national authori-
ties have had a good deal to say about
those which make a speciality of yellow
fever. And so it goes. Every contagious
disease has it's microbe which devotes itself
exclusively to the work of propagating that
particular disease-a kind of industry and
competition which mankind would willingly
see abolished if possible.
1t is singular that even the scientific
world remained so long in ignorance of
the principles of germ life and of the
tremendous activity which prevails in that
form of nature. True, it could only be re-
vealed by the microscope but that instru-
ment was in use long time before scien-
lists discovered the secret of germ life. All
the discoveries on the subject are COMPARE
lively recent Up to about 1860 the micro
scopic organisms which are now known to
pervade the whole realm of nature, and
which have become the basis of new
branch of science, had hardly emerged
from obscurity. Up to that time even a
scientist would scarcely have known a
microbe if he had met one. 1t was Pasteur,
the French scientist, who brought bacteria
to the front and preached the theory that
they were an almost omnipresent and very
potent factor i'll the operations of nature.
Before he began to investigate the invisible
bacterian world the most learned scientists
did not know any more than the most
ignorant farmers wife what caused the
souring of milk, and the verest loon knew
as much about the propagation of disease
as did the entire medical faculty. The
whole science of bacteriology has been de-
veloped within the last thirty years and
the greater part of it within fifteen years
While the telescope has been exploring re-
mote worlds the microscope has disclosed
an unsupported one near at hand-above
underneath, and all around us. 1t is now
known that microbes are in the air, in the
water, III the SOll, III OF on all human
all animal bodies. They are found at con-
siderable depths in the ocean, in all water
whether stagnant or running, in the carpets
of our houses, in every cloud of dust, in
every bit of decaying matter whether ami
NAL or vegetable, in our clothes, under our
finger nails, among the hair--in short
wherever on the face of nature there is
lodging place for dust They are as near
ly omnipresent as anything in nature, and
their activity is ceaseless. Their minute
size, microscopic in smallness. would make
them impotent for evil or good were it not
for their extraordinary power of multiplied
ton. They not only multiply, but divide
propagating themselves so rapidly in this
way that in one day each bacterium can
produce 16,5OO,0oO others and each of these
as many more every twenty-four hours
No wonder the supply is equal to the de-
mand. So much is heard of them in con-
nection with diseases that one is apt to
conclude that they are a power for evil
only. This is a great mistake. Let us give
the microbe his due. Perhaps on the whole
their services are more beneficial than
harmful True. there are the cholera mi
crobe. the dphtheria microbe. the typhoid