Omaha daily bee., 1903-06-21
June n, 1908.
Humanity's Final Battle
CONTINUED from Page Three.)

many-Celled organisms AS forces on earth
besides the vertebrates only the insects de.
mand consideration.
Man needs little from them, but they
harm him much. SO he is In open, steady
war of destruction with them everywhere
Its end is not doubtful.
And so on. There remains of organisms
of the land only the many-celled plant
But man has not had to fight with the
plant. He dwelled with it from carly
times as If it were a beloved younger sister
lmmeasurably more plant than the ami
NAL, it has been changing through thou
sands of years under his hand into true
ever er-improving tool The grass ripens into
corn for him. the creeper of the primeyal
forest bears grapes for him, the rough.
gnarled forest tree changes into fruit
bearer for him. When this has been con.
tinued for still more thousands of years.
every blossom, every fruit. every tree-form
on earth will be so thoroughly the work of
man that one can hardly call IT CON
quest of man any more. The plant will
simply have been made part of the human
world; a far different achievement from
that of destroying the monsters
last look. now, into the water There
In the depths still live whole families and
races-the prickle skins. the sea stars.
sponges, polyps, worms and others, all rep-
resented by myriads of individuals. With
out question the actual mastery of the deem
sea by man is only in its beginning.
But IT begins so thoroughly that there
can be no doubt about his victory there
either. The great sea mammals. like the
whale' learned mans power first A sim.
liar war of extinction was begun against
certain usful fishes, like the herring al,
thoush man has now assumed the more
iue"l Posluon OF ruling by propagatina
them The oyster has been changed into a
domestic animal, as man did with the bee
thousands of years earlier. Gradually ALI
civilized coasts will become such dominions
from which man will reach into the sea
and yoke the salt waters to his work. .
True, the coast is not the high sea m.
the abyss of the deep water But over tba
abyss our steamships glide in a THOUSAND
directions. And the same century that
pullt the nrst steamship, that measured the
ocean chasms for the same time and dIs.
covered the fairy-like animal life dowr
'here' Is forcing culture into the depths.
through the under-seas our telegram
cables wind like enormous sea snakes Tn
the coming century the submarine hoat.
VIII follow. It all hurls itself along vv,th
express speed in which there is no mora
pause. Man, master OF the water. as no 10
OF the land-master OF all muIti-ceIled or
ganlsms' master of all his ancestors down
10 that lost gastrea, the first stomach. deem
down In the water as in the light on the
earth.
And in the midst of this full triumph-an
app"liihs discovery! Our most hideous liv-
Ing foe has been unknown to us untiI
within the last decade
1t is no other than the last act ~ tb,,
great drama that
OF years ago when the young creature
man, faced the world primeval filled win,
tertiary and diluVial monsters and had to
answer the question as to what he was
going to do
Ihree acts, and man has settled with ALT
his multi-celled ancestors, cousins and
uncles. Now, in the fourth act. the whoIa
mass of life has been subjugated with TIA
exception OF this last corner And this
corner is the world of bacillus the simple
primordial form of life.
This last battle is so much more i'm
mense than all the rest, that is by far the
mot important in the history of the world.
We are in 1t now, but how long will it
last? And is 1t at all certain who will be-
the victor?
The attack of the bacinl is a monster
attack on the most extravagant scale
Will man win?
The problem is stated clearly: a colossal
cell-community, man-1,5OO, ,O0J 600 of such
cell communities on the whole earth-fghts
desperately against myriads of individual
cells that want to pour into his community,
feed on it and produce poisons to kill it.
Now what does the present phase of
our bacterological knowledge signify?
1t signifies that the war finally has en-
tered field wherein our cell communities
find a new resort.
The brain, the thought-cells, have entered
the fight. In that part of our cell-commu-
nifty nothing was known of the battle be-
tween bacillus and man until recently.
Vast armies of cells in the human body
have fought, since the days of the first
man, against the inimical disease and pest
cells. But tic brain cells of humanity
took no part in the war.
Now, the brain cells have produced a