American Falls press. [volume] (American Falls, Idaho) 1907-1937, 1915-10-21
GREAT THINGS HAVE SMALL BEGINNINGS.

A spectacle maker, Jan Leippersheim by name, living
in Holland, invented a crude magnifying glass in 1908,
Anton Won Leuwenhoek, born in Delft, this day 1882, i'm
proved this clumsy toy and evolved a compound micro
scope 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 today as is
the modern American from the original caveman. Yet by
this faulty means, Ieuwenhoek, naturalist, physician and
botanist, discovered certain minute bodies which he called
little animals" He made drawings Of these and today
we know them for those useful friends and malignant
enemies of man-bacteria.
We spend our DAYS surrounded by another world, a lv-
ing 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 gases,
every dead thing which they attack. They are of various
shapes, round like marbles or straight like little sticks.
They grow in clusters, chains, and in pairs. They are
ubiquitous. The dusty air, the earth and its waters, the
interior of animals and plants all contain them. 1hey
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 If living. Many OF them
live as harmless creatures in the body OF All ANNA for
years, only to kill their host when the opportunity pre-
sents. Their study has given birth to a science, bacterl-
ology, one of the foundation stones of public health.
Their mere presence does not necessarily produce dis
ease. Recalling the parable of the sower, some bacteria
fall by the wayside, some fall upon stony places, and some
Tall IN gOOQ gTOunu dHu DIlHS OIC CHC ~ VI o"AtS
ing, perhaps of death. A normal temperate life, free
alike from the gluttony of idleness or overwork, the sound
mind in the sound body, a cheerful, normal environment,
these form the stony places in which bacteria take no
root. The depraved a~ppetites of mind and body, the dark
and sordid atmosphere of perjury, 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 a great measure
in our own hands. Clean persons, clean cities, clean work
shops and clean lives are the makers OF pubic healtn: inc
United States Public Health Service and other sanitary
bodies of this country are gradually bringing these facts
home to the general public. In this way cleanliness is be-
coming more general, and the span of life in America is
gradually being heightened. ALI of which is largely due
to the microscope.