Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1900-01-15

A third species SEEMED to have spe-
cial fitness Tor promoting the action Of
! bic on fats.
| A fresh set of tests is now recounted
in a German publication devoted to
meteorological research. V1gnal had
shown in a general way that these mi
crobes played a part in the work OF.
digestion. But no evidence was ad-
duced as to how beneficial such activ-
| ity was. And this is what Dr. M
Schottelius now reveals in the 'Archiv
fur Hugiene und Infektionskrankhei-
ten" His investigation was conducted
with chickens. He made no cultures
of bacteria for this purpose. He as
sumed that newly Matched chickens
would acquire them with their food
very soon after Matching if no precau-
tiOns were taken to prevent such a re-
suit. In order to institute proper
comparison, therefore, he made elabo-
rate provision for raising part of his
chickens in such manner that they
would not have any bacteria IN them.
The details of his method are so
complicated that it is needless to re-
cite them here. Suffice it to say that
he Matched out two broOds, alike in
all conditions of existence SO far as
was practicable, except in this respect:
One lot broke the shell. to find them
selves incarcerated in a sterilized YES
sci, whose atmosphere had Deen de-
prived of all germs of every kind.
The air was 'aseptic." The food
given to them, too, was germ-free.
Thus all microbes were excluded from
the 'protected' chickens, while the
other lot were left exposed to the or
binary chances of infection-if such a
term may be used in speaking of bene-
fetal bacteria. To make sure that his
precautions had been effective, DR..
SchOttelius examined the excreta of
the protected chickens and found that
during the whole series of observa-
lions, lasting seventeen days Or more,
no microbes appeared.
The difference in the rapidity with
which the chickens grew in size was
highly significant. Those which were
confined in sterilized vessel, ate ster-
ilized food and breathed sterilized air
increased in weight Is per. cent. in
twelve days. And after that there was
a. trifing decrease.
On the other hand, those who were
brought up in the ordinary manner
made a gain of 140 per cent. in twelve
days. This is nearly six times as great
a development as that of the pro-
tected chicks. But the increase con-
tinued and on the seventeenth day the
unprotected chickens weighed ten
times as much as when newly Matched.
This was ten times the growth of the
specimens from which the bacteria had
been so carefully excluded.
Here, then, is an added service which
the microbe renders to the man who
dimes. He already knows that the fla
vor of his cheese, the bouquet of his
wine and the aroma of his cigar all
depend upon the activity, at some pre-
vious time and in distant places, of va
rious species of mfcro-organisms. But
now he learns that he must thank still
another undressing inside of him,
and working in the present tense-for
the facility with which he digests his
repast and the amount of resulting
gain in tissue. Hence he is tempted
to suspect that any predispositlon he
, may have discovered in himself toward
the acquisition of superfuOus weight is
; not altogether an effect of diet-as his
physician tells him-but, to some ex-
tent, of the size of the colony of di-
, gestive bacteria which has taken up it's
} residence in his department OF the in
) terror This clew, moreover, may lead
to the invention of new cure for dys-
pepsia.-New York Tribune.