Daily Kennebec journal., 1913-10-03
A Talk on BacterioIogy.


A reader has asked me to talk on
"Bacteriology. but l can only suggest
perusal of the latest book on the sub
iect. 1t is developing hourly. Since the
days of DR.. Jenner, who first fought
smallpox in the human body by inocu-
lation countless scientists have been IN
quest of certain infiinitesimally small
specimens of vegetable and animal life
known as bacteria. They have told us
that absolutely everything eaten or
drunk is filled with them, and that the
air one has to breathe is made danger
Gus by them.
Prof. Naegeli first authoritatively an
nounced the weight of abacterium to be
one -millonth of a miligram. AL
though this is equivalent to asserting that
the bacterium weighs nothing. it reduces
the quest to the level of a vulgar frac-
ton.
Following DIR. Jenner's successful cam
paign against bacteria, came Polender,
with his remarkable discoveries of rod
lets in the blood of animals afflicted with
splenetc fever. After that day, the
spleen in the human body, which pre-
yiously had no recognized use, became a
factor of danger as a disease-breeder.
and it's place in pathalagy was fixed as
an agent for the removal of humanity.
When everything else fails to destroy
your life the spleen will get in its work
Althour Uasteur was not the first by
any means to delve into the mysteries of
bacteriology, he managed to be most
talked about, because he grappled the
horrible death agonies associated with
tion of baeilli to fermentation. and | re-
member to have read in one of his early
books the assertion that milk turns sour
because of the generation of vibro lac
tis." Everybody knows that the vibro
is the second form of the third class o.
bacteria, and is so named because it as
sumes the character of a wavy line. But
see to what a syllogism this statement
of the learned professor brings us: y
thunderstorm turns milk sour. "AH;N
turns sour because of the generation of
vibro lactis Therefore, thunder de-
velops the vibro lactis bacilli Improb
able as this sounds. the scientist still
asks. Why not? A thunderstorm has
been known TO produce madness in hu-
man kind; the moon herself is own
mother to funaey.
DR. Robert Koch took up the clews of
Pollender and. with the single exception
of Pasteur, became the most discussed
of bacteriologists. The United States
has since acquired from Europe DR.
Jacques Loeb and from Cornell univer-
sity DR.. Herman B. Bigs, who stand
foremost of living students of the para
sites few or many, that destroy human
An poIa H.
been devised for this branch of science
within the last so years.
The new system of medicine had its
bitter religious opponents, exactly as did
Darwin's philosophy of the origin of
human life. Pollender and Darwin were
almost synchronous. Medical science on
the one hand and religious belief on the
other were torn to shreds amid the dis
cussions that preceded their acceptance.
Today the bacillus is the greatest in
dividual recognized in the medical world.
He may be too minute to turn a scale,
but when he once ensconces himself in
his favorite tissue in the human body he
weighs ton
The new science of microscopic indi-
Gates few of the ills for which the
bacillus is held responsible: Tubercu-
losis, scarlet and typhoid fevers, trysi-
pelas, rabies. pyaemia, peritonitis. dipn-
liberia, measles, cholera, smallpox, and
many others.
DR.. Koch of Berlin. on March "a, 1882,
discovered the bacillus tuberculosis, but
eight years passed before he announced
his still unaccepted antidote. That he
was on the right track toward the con-
quest of this deadly germ no real scien-
tist has doubted. Koch must be given
credit for the most thorough study of the
| life progress of this foe to humanity.
| Through a powerful microscope he has
watched its inception. birth and devel-
opment, He has fixed it's size at one.
| third the diameter of blood corpusele
Medical science appears to be prepared
| for great revelations in bacteroiogy
| There are in this city in the Pasteul
institute alone, a SCORE OF specialist
| giving their entire time to the micro.
| scopic observation of cultures responsible,
| for the various parasitic diseases.
| Brooklyn Eagle