Intermountain Jewish news., 1926-08-05
A BOOK OF SAINTS
Microbc Hunters
Microbe Hunters BY Paul DE kruif


Harcourt. Brace 4 Co. BY B. e. Meyrowin
Dr. de Kruif is the man who colahoratcd with Sin
clair Lewis in the writing of "Arrowsmth 1t is from
him that Lewis learned the inside workings of the pro-
esson of medicine. The sly penetrating observation of
medical foies Incorporated into "Arrowsmith' helped
that work little attain Its worth. Now de
kruf has done something his He has pumped the
juices Of life into what the the street
nothing but Here is the very first paragraph;
probably intended bait your interest And how well
it succeeds.
Two hundred and fifty years ago obscure
nnmed Leeuwenhoek looked for the first time into II
mysterious world peoped with a thousand different
kinds of tiny beings ferocious and deadly others
friendly and useful many of them important to
mankind than any continent or archipelago
In the city of Delft, in Holland, in the second half
of the seventeenth century there lived
full dry-goods store keeper lie found 1t necessary
selling silks satins by getting
himself appointed jnnitor of the city hall This jantcr
nosy pIuisitive Not about his neighbors
business but about things entirely different Being either
poor stngy buy lenses with which to observe
these things that intrigued him. he became lens grinder
in his spare time How much spare time Leeuwenhoek
had researches of Dr. de Kruf do mention hut he
does he had two wives lin succession" This
albeit jealous suspicious and grumpy about his
work is about the work that him the reputation
of being cracked expressed sentiments that every
seeker after truth might do than nail to his mast
This. mind you, two hundred years
ideas but III leave them and TO others soon a.
| am plausible which | grasp. This
IL the more true since have no other purpose than t."
place truth before my eyes far it is In power
to embrace little talent ! have received
to draw the world away from its old henhenish super
stors and to to the truth and to sick to it,
Then the canny Spannzanl This Italian
membercd that Serveus burned the stake for cn
ting up and examining body of dead He also
remembered that Gaeo imprisoned for life for suc
| gesiing that the earth around the This
Spnllanzan you will admit willy In order to avoid
religious persecution the dcas he held and which n
knew he heretical he became priest. So the man
that established the fact that microbes have mothers
his and his nails with him to his
having them extracted in admonshment for
doubling that organisms generated spontaneously That
mice from nothing was sworn to by all learned
Don't think spaanzani had easy time disprov-
| ing this fancy fact.
Here a with such amaniacal curiosity. that
severed the hind legs of male frog in the net
population in order to test the vehemence of its passion
And just such consuming mental thirst just such sIs
aincd interest in the solution Of portion of the world
riddle Spaanzani possessed to pierce
the heavy pail of msnformation behind which the con-
temporary academicians stayed and spumed ominsccnce
| Well he did creditiblc piece of work.
DR. de kruif then sandwiches excellent chapter on
Robert Koch with good Louis Pasteur. kocis
technique of search antithetic Pascurs. Koch was
German thorough cold -booded inpatient with the hit
style dissolving doubts before any one uoubtN
| Pnseur French: volatile imaginative intensely pn.
trioc rastcur picturesque and therefore Grippcl
popular mind easily than the sodgy Koch Even
today the persons knowledge of Pnstcur re
calls only hydrophoba if that He did much more than
| wipe the madness Koch did much more than
discover the of tuberculosis. Paul de kruf in IN
tcrpreng to the aymnn the mcrobe hunters Will to long
| he known by the reflected glow of their Immortality
| a. There also the Americans Thcomd Smith and
Walter Reed The latter with his assortment Of human
gninea pigs pointed the TO the eradication of Fellow
fever The little known story about the volunteer victims
should thrill the most blase.
Then there the grIncarricrs All great hunters
have of the crrand boys Of Koch and
pnSieur became masters themselves RouN and BelrinG
aud ocfcr tho fathers of dpthera antitoNin Ehr
Itch Savarsan to the world long after he graduated
from Kochs laboratory. with COG Ehrich established
chemo-therapy.
one must mention Bruce of the Tsctsc fly; Mctchnkof
OF the suicidal disposition and phagocytc theory and Ross
Grassi who did for malaria. Here trucstorir'
| worth knowing
elusive contingency Of things and the rcmouldns activity
| Of IN TO thinking of world Is q