A Parasite of the Maggot 



watch-glasses? There is the disintegrated 

 matter of the corpse, especially shreds of dried 

 muscles. Do these substances yield certain 

 soluble elements to water? Or are they sim- 

 ply reduced to a fine dust in the crushing? I 

 will not decide this question, nor is it really of 

 importance. The fact remains that the poison 

 proceeds from those substances and from them 

 alone. Animal matter, therefore, which has 

 ceased to live is an agent of destruction within 

 the organism. The dead cell kills the living 

 cell; in the delicate statics of life, it is the grain 

 of sand which, refusing its support, entails the 

 collapse of the whole edifice. 



In this connection, we may recall those 

 dreadful dissecting-room accidents. Through 

 awkwardness, a student of anatomy pricks 

 himself with his scalpel in the course of his 

 work; or else, by inadvertence, he has an in- 

 significant scratch on his hand. A cut which 

 one would hardly notice, produced by the 

 point of a pocket-knife, a scratch of no ac- 

 count, from a thorn or otherwise, now becomes 

 a mortal wound, if powerful antispetics do not 

 speedily remedy the ill. The scalpel is soiled 

 by its contact with the flesh of the corpse; so 

 are the hands. That is quite enough. The 

 virus of corruption is introduced; and, if not 

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