Journal of Applied Microscopy 



and 



Laboratory Methods 



Volume VI. MARCH, 1903. Number 3. 



Bacteriology for High Schools. 



Copyrighted. 

 I. 



It would seem very desirable to give pupils in the high school some definite 

 ideas in regard to the bacteria. Everyone ought to know what bacteria are, 

 what they do, where and how they live, and the relation which they bear to 

 man's welfare. No one can, however, get any adequate idea of them without 

 seeing them, since there is no familiar object with which they can be compared. 

 The rapidity of their multiplication and the changes which they are capable of 

 bringing about are best appreciated when they can be seen and studied growing 

 on artificial media. It would seem desirable, then, to have the pupils actually 

 do some laboratory work in bacteriology. But it is not worth while to have them 

 spend the time necessary to work out the methods ordinarily used, since the 

 aim should be to give the pupil the proper idea of bacteria and some notion of 

 their activities and not to impart technical methods. This means that they are 

 to be taught the means of demonstrating the bacteria in various places, their 

 action on certain substances, and the efi^ect of various agents in modifying or 

 destroying their activities. With this idea in view the following series of exer- 

 cises have been written out. It is believed that they will be in line with a need 

 that has already been felt in many quarters and it is hoped that they will create 

 an interest among a larger circle of teachers. For it is certainly true that the masses 

 can not long be content to remain ignorant of the general principles of sanitary 

 science, a science which has done so much in the last quarter of a century to 

 increase the sum total of human happiness. 



LABORATORY ROOM. 



For this course it will not be necessary to have a special room or any ex- 

 pensive equipment, except a microscope which must be furnished by the school 

 or loaned by an interested physician. The work can be done (and preferably 

 in most cases) at home with little more than the ordinary kitchen equipment. 

 There are, however, a number of schools where a course like this can be given 

 a regular place in the curriculum either as a distinct course or a part of a 



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