Ellsworth American., 1915-10-27
BACTERIA.
The Greatest Friends and Fiercest
Foes Of Every Living Thing.

The Greatest Friends and Fiercest
Foes of Every Living Thing.
Fson the United states Public Health Ser
vice.l
Great things have small beginnings.
spectacle maker, Jan Leippersheim by
name, living in Holland, invented crude
magnifying glass in 1908. Anton Won
Leuwenhoek, born in Delft in 1882, inn
proved this clumsy toy and evolved a COM
pound microscope which has become the
most valuable sanitary tool yet devised
by man.
That first microscope was as far removed
from the high powered instrument OF to-
day as is the modern American from the
original caveman. Yet by this faulty
means, Leuwenhoek, naturalist, physician
and botanist, discovered certain minute
bodies which he called "little animals.
He made drawings of these, and to-day
we know them for those useful friends
We spend our days surrounded by
another world, living world OF countless
billions, invisible to the naked eye, silent,
tireless, destroying the living, consuming
the dead, useful in the sciences and arts,
yet often followed by a train of sickness,
suffering and death. A curious paradox
this, yet bacteria are at once the greatest
friends and the fiercest foes OF every
living thing.
Not animals, as Leuwenhoek.. thought,
but vegetables, bacteria consist of two
classes those which prey on living
things and those which reduce to their
original minerals, fluids and gasses, every
dead thing which they attack. They are
Of various shapes, round like marbles or
straight like little sticks. They grow in
clusters, ahains and in pairs. They are
ubiquitous. The dusty air, the earth and
its waters, the interior OF animals and
plants all contain them.
They cause the fermentation Of foods,
they make cheese, they produce disease,
and some of them. when killed and in
jected into an~animal, protect it against
the very disease which they would
have produced il living. Many Of them
live as harmless creatures in the body OF
an animal for years, only to kill tneir
host when the opportunity presents.
Their study has given birth to a science,
bacteriology, one OF the foundation stones
Of public health.
Their mere presencs does not neces-
sariIy produce disease. Recalling the
parable of the sower, some bacteria fall by
the wayside, some fall upon stony places,
and some fall in good ground and bring
forth the fruit OF suffering, perhaps of
death. A normal, temperate life, free
alike from the gluttony OF idleness or
'overwork, the sound mind in the sound
body, cheerful, normal environment,
these form the stony places in which
bacteria take no root. The depraved APP
petites of mind and body, the dark and
sordid atmosphere OF penury, the nerve
racking and strength undermining trades,
these prepare the good ground.
The great weapon against bacteria is
cleanliness. The mastery over premature
death lies to great measure in our own
hands. Clean persons. clean cities, clean
workshops and clean lives are the makers
OF public health. The United States Pub
lie Health Service and other sanitary
bodies of this country are gradually
bringing these facts nome TO the general
public. In this way cleanliness is be-
coming more general, and the span OF life
IN America is gradually being heightened.
All OF which is largely due to the micro
scope.