The age-herald., 1899-01-25
The Iron Market.
Birmingham, Jan. A.-The following are the lnt "a tinns in
WHAT THE GRIP GERM IS
How 1t Looks Under Microscope and How 1t
 Develops in tine System
From the New York Journal.

From the New York Journal. af At last something is known about that freaky little animal, the grip germ, which has been making so much trouble for the last few years. t 4 This slippery little fellow started on his
 present tour last November in Turkey, so
 Surgeon General Wyman says. The roly- polly germ followed the lines of commerce. westward and came across the ocean in the
 big liners, arriving in New York in time to have A great Christmas celebration here. But now he has been brought up short by the health department. He has been
 caught, put into a cage, looked at through a microscope and dissected Of course,
 this isn't the last of the grip germ. The one captured by the health department is
 only one representative of several millions, now residing in the noses, mouths throats
 and lungs of New Workers. Besides these, several quadrillions Of their kind have already travelled by express and freight trains to the remotest parts of the United States. Some have gone to winter in Florida, while others have chosen | this as an opportune time for trip to the
 Klondike. For strange to say, this little animal is utterly indifferent to any de- | gree of cold.
 There is naturally good deal of curiosity | to know what kind of an animal, insect or what not this grip germ really is. In the
 health department laboratory here 1t has been found that the grip germ looks out wardly like a goose egg when sufficiently | enarged-say 1000 billion times. He is like | an egg in a good many ways, too In the | first place he has an outer covering or en- | velope corresponding to an eggs shell. | Within this is a cellular mass of whitish | stuff which is very like the white of an egg.
 In the very middle is the protoplasm cor responding to the yolk of the egg.
 Now, this protoplasm as everybody
 knows, is the simplest form of life. Scient- ists are unable to tell as yet whether 1t acts spontaneously in one mass or whether it really has structure like the insides of
 animals. However this may be- this grip
 germ is constantly at work when in the hu-
 man system throwing off the poisonous liquid which causes the grip. For 1t should
 be distinctly borne in mind that it is not the germ itself that makes the disease; it is the excrescence, matter it throws off. The actual size of this little creature is about one-twenty-f1fth thousandth of an
 inch in length. As it is so great traveller, one might suppose that it has either wings or very agile feet. But 1t has not. It is
 utterly unable to move itself. The way it travels is by sticking itself on to some per
 son or thing that is moving. When it gets
 attached to a person it gets to the mouth or nose in due time, for the hands are always
 travelling upwards to the face, or the breath is drawing up the surrounding air into the nose. The tongue is one of its first lodg-
 ing places if it gets into the mouth. There are excellent hiding places among the little stumps and knobs that form the rough sur face of the tongue. Under the microscope the tongue looks like piece of cleared land with the stumps left standing, be- tween which small bushes are growing up. Though this is an excellent hiding place, the grip germ, being round, like egg, is
 soon rolled backward and downward by the constant swallowing motion that is going on in the mouth ci This throws the grip germs into just the places they like best, the mucous membrane