The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920, 1915-11-03
The Omnipotent Microbe
~ Or. FRANK CRANE
Copyright, 1915. by Frank Crane)

We have not found out much more
about life than they knew in the days
Of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus, but
we have hit upon new way Of explain
ing its inscrutable problems, and we are
as tickled as baby with new toy.
Those days they accounted for the
mysterious of existence by attributing
them to the influence Of the stars, to
witchcraft, and the devils Now all that
kind of belief is out of style. Our uni
versal abracadabra is science.
Instead of charms. incantations. elves,
and ghosts We talk glibly of germs, chem
ical reactions, pancreatic juice, and white
corpuscles.
Then the medicine man drew a circle,
repeated the formula of King Solomon,
waved his hands at you and gave you an
amulet to wear; now the doctor gives
you a tablet, feels your pulse, takes your
temperature, X-rays you, feeds you bis
muth meal, looks like he knows a lot
but won't tell; and now, as then. maybe
you get well and maybe you die, accord
ing to the grace of God and the cryptic
book of fate.
One Of the most fascinating flights Of
scientific fancy is found in a book, mi
crobes and Men," recently issued from
the pen Of DR.. Robert T. Morris, physi-
clan of international reputation and con-
siderable literary skill.
Jules Verne and H. G.. Wells have no
monopoly of the kind of imaginative sci
ence that appeals to modern minds. The
regular fellows of Rockefeller Institute
and John Hopkins also know the enor-
nous appetite of nowadays for scientific
marvels.
They know that while we won't be-
heve in genii and entertainments, we will
swallow whole almost any story that in
wolves chemical formula, dictaphone.
or an electric thought-reader. We want
to hear about hydrostatic do-funnies and
dinguses that you can put on criminals
foot and find out where he hid the
jewels.
DR.. Morris plays up the microbe. Not
satisfied with charging it with fits and
fevers, he lays upon it the burden of pro-
ducing every sort Of mental disease,
from poetry TO running for congress.
1t is known, he says, that the microbe
accounts for the life and death questions
in the organic world, but he is also here
to inform us that it likewise orders mans
instincts and reason and dominates his
character, disposition, and career.
The literary criticism Of the future
will be devoted, according to him, to dis
covering what kind Of microbes were
chewing at the author and causing BRAIN
itch.
The tubercle bacilli, for instance, are
cheerful lot and cause toxin that
induces pleasant views; hence the opti-
mistic literature of Robert Louis Steven
son. The colon bacilli, on the contrary.
have an ugly disposition and exercise
depressing effect upon the mind.
Nietsche, for example. "As June
bug stung by scorpion circles about
in a way most interesting for observers,
so Nietzsche stung by the colon bacillus
engages the deep interest OF many spec
tators as he circles about wildly with
outspread logic"
The style of Carlyle, he declares, can
be traced along the different phases OF
his toxic influence. His pessimism and
anti-science in his later years were typi-
cal of the scorpion sting of colonic bac-
terra"
1t is the ambidextrOus and protean
microbe that decides mans attitude to-
ward education, feminism, the birth rate
race question, the tango. and new thought
There you are.
II In not "Cherchez la femme" any more but
Look for the mcrobe.'