58 THE MICROSCOPE. | April 
senses unfit for drinking and very dangerous. Wells 
and streams may get contaminated that way if sewage 
gets into them. 
We have then three drops of water; three specimens: 
one pure and potable, another filled with animalcule and 
a third infected with disease germs, the most dangerous 
of all. The animalculic water is not dangerous to health 
though not so very desirable for drinking purposes, We 
are here reminded of the lady who on being warned to 
boil her drinking water before partaking of it remarked 
that she had rather be an aquarium than a cemetery; 
meaning that she had rather contain living thau dead 
bacterie. She little knew the difference to her health. 
Dead bacterie are harmless; living ones far from it. 
Look out! 
EDITORIAL. 
Wood Pavements the Home of Microbes.—The laying 
of these pavements in this country and their extensive use 
abroad has led to an investigation of them as a lodging 
place for bacteria. 
It has been demonstrated by two French physicians that 
the number of microbic elements in the superfical layers, 
after the surface has been washed with water, amounted 
in one instance to 50,000,000 and in another to 79,360,000 
per gram (15 grains) while at the depth of 5 centimeters, 
(2 inches), in one case they amounted to 50,000 per 
gram; and at a depth of 6 centimeters in the other 
case to 423,600 per gram. Only asmall portion of these 
microbes were liquifying organisms, and they caused 
no infection when injected into guinea pigs. The point 
which is of the most importance from a hygienic point 
of view, is that the microbic infection is not a surface 
affair; it cannot be washed off. 
The bacteria are in the wood to the depth of two inches 
in considerable quantities and the wear of the pavements 
exposes them constantly. Although they of themselves 
