Bisbee daily review., 1918-12-08
THE BATTLE OF
 THE FRIENDLY AND
 UNFRIENDLY GERMS

Just to keep the newspaper man from becoming too proud and being too thankful on Thanksgiving day an
 unfriendly fate visited upon him a lively attack of the influenza From
 the table and the turkey the newspa- perman crawled to his bed, and Doc
 Brandon came with cheerful grin to
 press his pulse and test his temper
 ature.
 "Um," said the doc in his happy lit
 tie way, two degrees of fever; not
 pad at all Id better give you a shot
 to keep the pneumonia bugs away"
 And he did.
 The newspaper man lay there in the
 darkened room and tossed with the
 fever and cursed the pains in his back
 and head and wondered why so many
 rough dark places are set along the
 way of this pilgrim journey. Well. aft
 CT about an hour or two his arm began
 to hurt And then he remembered
 that the doc had imparted o'him the
 information that there were six mil lion friendly and preventative germs
 in that procession that had entered his left arm. And each one of them will multiply" had said the dcc, ''so that in an hour or two you will have six billion germs fighting on your side against the flu bugs"
 This was encouraging, and the newspaper man felt that he needed at least that many fighters to help him. And he felt, too, that these friendly germs had already begun the battle. The pains in his arm were many and every time he moved it the pains, like the germs. multiplied.
 After awhile he fell into a troubled slumber. half awake and half asleep; sunlight and shadow on the field of life And then it was given him to witness a greater and more deadly battle than any of the Great War Yer dun, the Marne, Ypres, Cambrai. these and immortal fields were mere skirmishes in comparison to the ferocity and slaughter of this battle of the germs. The first thing those six million white warriors did after they debouched in the principal vein of the newspaper mans left arm was to form up in companies and advance fearlessly right into the enemy's ter ritory in the shoulder and left breast. They went over the top without wait ing for artillery support About ten million black germs advanced 10 meet them and the carnage was something awful, thousands falling every minute. The friendly germs fought like the Roman legionaries of old, in close and with perfect discipline, using the short sword for attack and the .sRiall round shield for defense. 1 They hewed their way against odds l into the enemy positions and routed ! them, killing the wounded as they l moved up to and took possession of a 1 fortress in the lobe of the left lung.
 But the black germs although l beaten were not broken. They re. | treated fighting stubbornly. and pret- | -y soon endorsements came up by | he millions and they drove the friend | y germs back to the shoulder. Then | he artillery came into action. The | wheels of the cannon had flanges that | stood out like the cogs on an English | ank and they used the nerves in the l newspaper illdil dilu TUT IOduS anu he muscles for gun platforms. The game little general of the friendly germ forces drew his sword and stuck the point of it about a foot into l long muscle and said he would die ,n this spot. In the meantime the white germs also received reinforce nents. These came in endless col Imns, each germ carrying a small rifle with an enormous sabre bayonet fas- ened to it's muzzle. They struck the myriad black formations like a storm wave and stabbed and thrust and cut heir way right through the center, ldvancing and taking the third line where they dug in. But the wings of the black army closed in on hem and killed them to a germ.
 Then the white general, seeing that courage availed not against such num- ,ers, resorted to strategy. He pound d the enemy troop concentrations in he center with heavy artillery fire md started the action over again with
 terrible drive on the extreme right. Both sides were reinforced by mil ions upon millions of fresh warriors nd no quarter was asked or given. { was noticeable that while the blacks we're the larger and stronger. the U