The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1915-10-19
Great Things Have
Small Beginnings.

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Great things have small begin
nings. A spectacle maker, Dan Leip-
persheim by name, living in Holland,
invented a crude maenifying glass in
1908. Anton Won Leuwenhoek, born
in Delft, this day 1882, improved this
clumsy toy and evolved a compound
microscope which has become the
most valuable sanitary tool yet de-
vised 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.
Leuwenhoek, naturalist, physician and
botanist, discovered certain minute
bodies which he called 'little ami
mails" 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 living world of
countless billions, invisible to the
naked eye, silent, tireless, destroying
the living, consuming the dead, use
full in the sciences ano arts, yet often
followed by train of sickness, suffer
ing and death. A curious paradox
this, yet bacteria are at once the
greatest friends and the fercest foes
of every living thing. Not animals,
as Leuwenhoek thought, but vegeta-
bles, 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. They cause the fermentation
of foods, they make cheese, they pro-
duce disease and some of them when
killed and injected into an animal pro-
tect it against the very disease which
they would have produced if living.
Many of them live as harmless crea-
lures in the body of an animal for
years, only to kill their host when
the opportunity presents. Their
study has given birth to a science,
bacteriology, one of the foundation
stones of public health.
Their mere presence does not neces-
sarily 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 nor
NAL, 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 BAG
terra take no root. The depraved ap-
petites of mind and body, the dark
and sordid atmosphere of penury, the
nerve racking and strength undermin-
ing trades, these prepare the good
ground.
The great weapon against bacteria
is cleanliness. The mastery over pre-
mature death lies to great measure
in our own hands. Clean persons
clean cities, clean workshops anc
clean lives are the makers of public
health. The United States Public
Health Service and other sanitary
bodies of this country are gradually
bringing these facts home to the gen
eral public. In this way cleanliness
is becoming more general, and tht
span of life in America is gradual,
being heightened. AL of which il