The Saint Paul globe., 1900-11-30
Dress and Milk Microbes.

To the Editor of the e: A lady
correspondent requests the writer to
answer through the ST. Paul Daily
c 0 e the following queries:
Ffrst-What shall l understand by this
funny perhaps serious) talk about the
ability of long dresses to gather an un-
due amount of microbes? Is it the nd-
crobe or dress that is dangerous:
Second-Admitting the hidden dangers
in the milk supply of the city, why does
not the legislature enact laws providing
town inspectors to look after the health
of the farmers households?
This lady may or may not write ''better
than Iae tltha She knows no but to say the least
woodpile While the germ theory Of
disease is fast dying a natural death,
though its devotees, by judicious treat
ment, may continue life for some years,
still this vague horror of hidden Gan-
ger will haunt the public mind long after
its scientific dissolution. The microbe
common to the lady's dress is virtually
merry with through life, and to its credit
is of the vegetable kingdom, per Sc per-
fectly harmless within the domain Of
natural laws from which we have the
axiom that no insect or animal life can
precede the necessary conditions for de-
velopment and support Consequently,
if we have desire for those peculiar to
an old boiled potato, meat, bread, etc,
with due regard to temperature and at
mOspheric oxygen, they are forthcoming
as though Omnipresent. In regard to
InOSG DeCQHdr TO disease, we discover
the so-called pathogenic on the hypothe-
sis that they are in and of themselves
cause. What has by many been as
sumed, but with very poor logic, mas
much as their entree is subsequent to the
abnormal conditions known as diseased
a indus for a natural development ana
for support Just so long as such condi-
tiOns continued, and when deprived of
those conditions they soon die-sooner
than the fallacy that they as
dust ever become the agency
found independent of the sick, and as
70 E'the find' in water courses or on
the wing, well, the hare has been
shared and ripened, but the culinary
part remains unsettled pending an Inves-
tigation Of the hypothetical ptomaine.
Hark, and from that filthy workman
learn a lesson,
That filth and foul odors make no health
depression.
AS to milk it is generally admitted that
ordinances just to the producer and
equally So to the consumer are proper,
and could be stated in a few words, while
to answer the multiplicity of absurdl-
ties promulgated by scientists CD would
require a volume of fair proper tons.
During the London craze OF 1SS0-6J, DR.
Waller said, What justifes the skepti-
cism regarding the epidemic is that the
English have been content to presume
the milk infected without producing the
corpus delicti.' At the same time R0u-
chardal said, There is not single fact
culosis to men from milk The late
Lawton TAFT, one of England's greatest
surgeons, said in relation to the ,litnger
of phthisical contagion, eff true, who Of
us could escape?"
A natural question, hacked by the best
Of authority observation. This IGea Of
the germ theory of disease woul-. graft
upon man the consumption of the cow
O. hybrid Milk furnishes its own nat
ural bacteria, but when the bacterloio-
gist claims to discover the unnatural
except when drawn from the diseased
udder), there may enter an element Of
doubt as Prof. Koch said in regard to
the diagnosis of Asiatic cholera.
There is a motherly sound in the cry Of
pure milk that serves to increase ia tier
than allay a common fear With the
human family tuberculosis is a general
or constitutional disease, with special
tendency to the lungs, but with the COW
family local to extreme limits When
the germ theorist invaded tine domain of
natural law by Pasteur1zing milk for
young children he unwittingIy made Il
valuable discovery, purely at the ex-
pense of the mothers idols, and then
neglected tC give to the world its bene-
fits for the main reason that it would
injure the root of his superstition"
p. Barton.
Nov. %. 1900