The Lafayette gazette. [volume] (Lafayette, La.) 1893-1921, 1901-04-27
Bugs in Our Butter.

The meeting of the Louisiana State Med
ical Society yesterday was, in a sense, dis
appointing, because the public had hoped
there would be as exhaustive discussion of
the bug question, but contrary to eXpecta-
tons the learned medicos treated each other
to carefully prepared papers the treat
ment of cystitis. the fracture of bones, the
use of strychnine and other prosy subjects.
THIS is age in which the gaysome germ,
the rollickipg microbe and the gluttonous
bacillus occupy the center of the stage and
are the talk of the scientific world. Having
been convinced that their systems are merely
tenement houses for all kinds of bacteria,
the people have become resigned to their
fate and even profoundly interested
when some scientist with thick eye glasses
and the scent of a camPhor ball clinging to
his wearing apparel solemnly expatiates on
the habits and customs of the various classes
of germs. A man who IS constantly facing
death finally has contempt tor IT, and thus
it is tn at the average citizen who knows that
he is loaded to the muzzle, like blunder-
buss, with bacteria, microbes and other bugs.
finally becomes hardened and reckless
wretch.
He can not help experiencing a thrill of
of satisfaction when medical scientists tell
him that his intestines boulevards for
billions of bacilli which are constantly moving
to and fl in a never ending procession, dis
playing their fnery and shopping eating
and drinking at his expense; that they play
lawn tennis in his lungs, give large garden
parties in his heart and cause him troubled
sleep bv using the surface of his liver
skating link. But we are quite suf-
fering fellow mortal will be much comforted
to know that while certain germs take up
their abiding place in his inwardness and
never pay anything tor their board or lodg-
ing, that he evens up the difference by living
some germs himself. This discovery
was the result of a scientists careful and
profound study of the question:: Why is
butter sailed? and the Investigations which
it prompted. A great many people to-
dav a II lie he of y,rI Ion
der the highly erroneous impression that
butter is sailed because in its original state it
is entirely too fresh. Not SO. Far away
are these plodders of the earth from the
mark. Butter is salted-it is to be hoped
che gentlemen of the Louisiana Medical
Society will not allow the fact to escape
them-because the bacterial population of a
lump of condensed COW oil only large
enough to get into thimble, is officially
declared to be as, 600, 900, therefore, when
eat slice of we'll buttered bread I'M
consciously benevolently assisnilate more in
dividual lives than there are in all the
countries of Europe.
In pound of butter there are a thousand
times as many more inhabitants than the
whole world can boast, and it follows as n
matter of course that something has to be
done to hold the enormous hordes in check,
otherwise pound of butter would develop
such strength that it would get up and walk
from New Orleans to Chicago and back
again, just for the sake of the constitutional
benefit derived from the exercise. Thus it
is that butter has to be sailed. The salt
acts as a narcotic the bacteria, destroys
the weaker heterogeneous, those be-
longing to the baby class, and suppresses
the activities of those who have arrived at
the voting age In this wav the butter
microbes are kept pacihed, and they are
devoured while in stuPor, their power of
resistance is gone and they fall easy victims
n to the gastric juices of the stomach. Were
il not for the pacifyng effects of the salt
there would be a tremendous inSurrection in
every tub of butter in the world, and it
would be impossible to keep pat of it on a
dining table unless it were. confined in a
steel cage. Now that people know why
butter is salted, they will frankly confess
that science contributes largely to the in
4 formation as well the gayety of the
universe, and they will find much to console
them in the fact that while they are being
killed off by the bacillus expectoratus and
4 other eoreie-eyed microbes, they are doing
some liTst-class work in the slaughter house
Il )1nsiness themselves.