The leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1895-1905, 1899-06-28
MICROBES ARE DELICATE.
p,,e,. the Condition. Are Just Right,
They VIII Not Thrive
mt All.

In very interesting lecture delivered
ut the Royal College Of Physicians, DIR.
Poore describes the action OF the earth
in relation TO the preservation and de-
struction of contagis, pointing out that
the chemical composition o. earth IS
constantly changing, and that its fit
ness for supporting the life OF the va
rious micro-organisms that are found
in il varies accordingly.
Each of these microbes presumably
grows best in what one may call its OPP
timum conditions, and the smallest al
iteration in these conditions may turn
the scale and decide which among the
competing organisms shall obtain the
mastery. In Illustration of the Gu
rious exactitude of the conditions
without which certain fungi will not
grow, and Of their extraordinary de-
velopmcnt, whenever these conditions
are fulfilled, DIR. Poore refers to the
growth of mushrooms.
"Some of the larger saprophytes," he
says, "such, for instance, as the COM
mon mushroom, require no little skill
for their artificial production, involving
| far more attention to exact details than
is necessary with the ordinary green
! leaved garden plants. We know that
| for few weeks in the autumn they
may appear in great numbers in dry
pastures where horses have been fed
| provided that the conditions of the air,
as temperature, light and moisture, be
| favorable, and we also know that di-
rectly the necessary conditions fail
| the mushroom harvest is at an end
| And it is clear that 1.-THE optimum
conditions for the growth and develop
| ment of these short-livcd and delicate
organisms must be marvelously subtle
probably quite beyond the ken of the
4 chemist" a
referring then to certain diseases
such, for example, as anthrax and tie
tanus, the germs of which are known tc
| grow freely in certain soils, attention i:
drawn to the rarity with which men are
| attacked by them, even when working
| on land which has almost certainly beer
| infected. We are thus brought face
| to face with the importance of the eX
| ira corporal phases of microbic life
| in the maintenance of continuity of in
| lection. Unfortunately, we seem &c
know but little in regard to the exact
conditions under which the severn
pathogenic organisms are best able to
maintain their existence in saprophytit
form. Something we know about the
bacillus of the tuberculosis, and some
thing we are beginning to know about
that of enteric fever, but much more
knowledge in this direction is badly
wanted.
1t is true enough, no doubt, as has
been we'll said, that THE proper study
of mankind is man." but this is just
| what the pathologist must unlearn if he
would get to the bottom of the etiology
and especially of the epidemiology, of
infectious ailments. No longer must
he be content to study the action of
the microbe within mans frame or the
methods by which it brews toxins and
sets up disease, but he must trace its
life history outside, and find out what
these infectious particles are doing
and how they are living through the
long interval that sometimes lapses be-
tween the termination of one case
and the development of another. One
fine morning we look out upon our pad
dock and find it full of mushrooms;
and another, although we know that
the spore is present just the same,
there is not mushroom to be seen.
1t was the conditions, not the seed
alone, that made them grow. And this
is q parable. Hospital.