516 WHAT A PIECE OF WORK IS MAM ! 



requisite is a suitable degree of heat: and this is found in the body of 

 every animal and every vegetable that we know, and particularly in the 

 animals of the higher order, or what are distinguished as warm-blooded 

 animals. The microscope shows us that every part of the bodies of these 

 animals is the habitation of innumerable living beings. All the secretions 

 not only of a diseased, but of even a healthy animal, when placed in a 

 microscope, are found to be teeming with life*. We may presume, that these 

 minute beings are innocuous to the animal whose body forms their natural habi- 

 tation ; but it is possible, and I think that analogy justifies us in presuming} that 

 there are also species which are not harmless. The minuteness of these 

 creatures may not alone render them insignificant. The want of size may 

 be balanced by the immensity of number ; and it seems scarcely reasonable 

 to suppose, that while our bodies constitute the crowded residence of 

 living beings, we should be always exempt from, being in any degree 

 affected by such a world within us : and could we know the history of 

 those minute beings, we should probably find in it an explanation of 

 many of our most formidable diseases." 



This is very nearly a new light, sufficiently so to merit the term 

 original, and we candidly confess that we have felt a sort of fidgetty 

 uneasiness since we read it. An ant-hill or a bee-hive must be an 

 absolute solitude compared to one's own body. 



"I think," continues Mr. Green, "we may with great probability 

 surmise, that all diseases which admit of being communicated from one 

 person to another, by contagion or infection, are the effect of some 

 species of animalcula unobservable to the eye. Some species are com- 

 municated only by contact with such parts of the skin as have the skin 

 very thin, &c. Other species are communicated at a considerable dis- 

 tance. In these cases the animalcula may be driven by the breath, or 

 more probably may fly. These animalcules then constitute what is 

 called the miasma of disease. P. 11. The small-pox, the measles, the 

 scarletina, and the hooping-cough, are probably caused each by its 

 peculiar species of animalcula ; they may be communicated, as is known, 

 at a considerable distance, probably by floating or flying through the 

 air." 



Mr. Green thus runs through* the nosology, very ingeniously 

 bringing in his minute operators as the ministers of disease. What a 

 blessing it is that these creatures are invisible ! Only for a moment 

 fancy, that the sleeping innocent who is reposing in his cot by our 

 side, and who is labouring under the hooping-cough, and whose rosy 

 lips are inviting a kiss only fancy how one should start back with 

 disgust and terror, at seeing, on every expiration, a legion of 

 hooping-cough animalcules fly from his lips the idea is really 

 fearful. 



But Mr. Green comes " doubly armed." Let us pursue his 

 theory : 



" We know by the microscope, that animalcules abound in every part 

 of the body, and we may reasonably conjecture from all the circumstances, 

 that some species of animalcules are noxious : but we cannot ascertain so 

 well the existence of minute vegetables, because the want of motion 

 makes these objects not so distinguishable in the microscope. We may, 

 however, reasonably presume that where animalcules abound, minute vege- 

 table productions will also flourish : warmth is equally favourable to both ; 

 and it is therefore probable that minute vegetables are as abundant throughout 

 the different parts of the body as minute anitnals, and we may with equal reason- 



