El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1912-09-17

where patienY scientists are invesu-
eating the causes Of diseases, they
would see realms undreamed OF In al
! their philosophy. They no longer
could assume that satisfied air OF
| skepticism VIXEN the medical Worid
| says that diseases are produced Dy MI
| crobes and that certain microbes pro-
J duce certain ailments. For seeing Is
believing, and modern laboratory IS
/ place where one may see with MS own
! eyes a thousand wonders that ne never
! knew existed before, and who goes
| there inevitably comes out knowing
| not which to marvel at the most-the
/ infinitisemal worlds revealed to MN
/ or the genius of the men who reveal
! them.
Millions of Germs.
! Millions upon millions of people do
| not believe such a thing as a germ eX-
/ lists. And when even those who are
| credited with being people of high in
/ telligence are told that there are germs
/ so small that the population of a drop
OF water might be as great as the hu-
] man population of the earth, they
| think it is only a fairy tale of the
| medical world And yet the bacterl-
! ologist can tell you more about the
| life habits of germs OF that size than
the average reader can tell of the life
habits of so familiar sight as the
English sparrow
The germ may be an animal like the
one that causes malaria or a vegetable
sis. The germ may be fond OF oxygen
or may detest it Some Of them die in
the open air and some die when they
cannot get it Some germs are round
like periods, others are long like
daShes, and others are shaped like
series Of commas tied together. Some
can stand all kinds of heat and some
can resist all kinds of cold Some
germs cause sickness and others pro-
mote health.
The cross examiner of the laborato-
~ makes the germ on trial tell 10
which class he belongs. Some absorb
colOrs and others do not. and the cross
examiner forces Mr.. Germ to tell to
which faction he belongs. Some are
able to swim around like fish in the
water, while others are as helpless as
a piece of driftwOod. Some, when they
get in tight place where death seems
to be their only portion, form spores,
which can stand all sorts of hardships
and afterward turn into natural germs
again.
Work of BacteriOIOgist.
Some of them are repealed by GER
tain substances which attract others;
some can drink a carbolic acid solution
as We drink lemonade; while to others
II is as fatal as arsenic to mankind
Some die on exposure to moisture,
while others are killed by drying Some
are so faStidiOus that they must have
the most delicate broth imaginable to
live in, while others can flourish like
CLAIMS at high tide on piece of old
shoe leather, and some transform
starch into sugar while others manu-
facture sugar into glucose These and
a hundred other different traits are
Characteristic Of germs, and by the
time Mr.. Germ is made to answer every
question, the bacteriologist knows ex-
actly where he belongs just as well as
the farmer knows sheep from q COW.
And by the time the layman has fol-
lowed the bacteriOlOSist through this
course of cross examination he cannot
fail to appreciate his wonderful work
He is the biggest vegetable and stock
grower in the world. He grows tens of
billions of plants and animals. And he
studies their tastes and traits as care
fully as ever hotel keeper studied the
tastes of his guests. He gives them
sterilized food to eat, keeps their sur
roundings q thousand times cleaner
than a queens kitchen, keeps their
rooms heated exactly to their liking.
and surrounds them with everything
imaginable to make them healthy and
prolific.
When the bacteriouogist wants to
grow a large family of germs-he calls
it colOny-he puts some of them into
a sterilized preparation which hardens.
There is then no chance for their
moving around. So each little germ
settles down to itself and begins 10
break in two, and then each of those !
pieces into two other pieces and so
on, until the family becomes as num- |
berless as the sands of the seashOre.
When he wants to take the census |
of the germ population of a given col
Ony he puts them into a sterilized fluid, !
adds ten times as mucn more fluid, !
and then ten times as much more and Z
so on until there are so many drops OF /
fluid that each can have only a few ;
germs in it. Then he puts one drop /
under the microscope, and counts the 4
inhabitants in it BY the reverse pro-
cess he is able then TO calculate math- !
ematically how many germs were in I
the entire colony.
Equipment of Laboratories.
In a well equipped laboratory there
are germs of all kinds. Here is a /
great mass of matter on a slice of /
Irish potato. 1t represents millions of !
tuberculosis germs, each one of which 4
microscope the doctor uses. Here is q
row of little tubes with cotton for
shoppers. Each OF them contains ty-
phoid germs enough to start a big cpl
demic.
Here are some tubes containing te-
tanus germs, which under micro
scope, look like little drumsticks. and
the poison or toxin they generate is so
powerful that the eighteenth part of
single grain of it viii kill a horse, a
poison that makes the venom of the
rattlesnake seem harmless in compari-
son.
There, mounted on a slide. in a slice
of parafin so thin that one might
stack up 10000 of them in a pile an
inch high, are a lot of little colored
bodies taken from the spinal cord of a
dog. They are called Negri bodies,
from the name of their discoverer, and
when those little specks are visible
under the microscope you may be sure
the dog had hydrOphObia- If you do
not believe it. put some of it into
mouse or a guinea pig and see how
certainly it will go mad. Then there
are tubes of measles germs. typhuS
germs, malarial germs, pneumonia /
germs, a thousand different kinds of
germs, and the doctor always has meth
DDS of proving that what his eyes tell
him is right
Must Have Patience.
In studying microbes the laboratory
expert must have infinite patience. He
must have the touch of an artist, the
Imagination of a poet, the hard sense
OF the farmer the passion for eXacti-
tude of mathematician, the tenacity !
of a bulldog, and the open mindedness
of the man who accepts nothing as
proved until it cannot be explained in
any other way. He must make the
most painstaking measurements, keep
his instruments absolutely sterile, try !
every theory he advances with the I
acid tests of practical application, and
make as sure as it is humanity possible
that his reasoning is correct.
What the study of microbes has I
l.