FLOWERLESS PLANTS 171 



body, causing the symptoms of the disease we call typhoid. To 

 prevent the spread of this disease, we must guard our water and 

 milk supply most carefully, in order to prevent any of the bacteria 

 which cause the disease from gaining entrance into the body. 



Tetanus or Blood Poisoning. — The bacterium causing blood 

 poisoning is another ptomaine-forming germ. It lives in the 

 earth and enters the body by means of cuts or bruises. It seems 

 to thrive best in less oxygen than is found in the air. It is there- 

 fore important not to close up with court plaster wounds in which 

 such germs may have found lodgment. It, with typhoid, is 

 responsible for four times as many deaths as bullets and shells in 

 time of battle. The wonderfully small death rate of the Japanese 

 army in their war with Russia was due to the fact that the Jap- 

 anese soldiers always boiled their drinking water before using it, 

 and their surgeons always dressed all wounds on the battle 

 field, using powerful antiseptics in order to kill any bacteria 

 that might find lodgment in the exposed wounds. 



Tuberculosis. — Another bacterium that is responsible for nearly 

 one seventh of all the yearly deaths in the world is the so-called tu- 

 bercle bacillus. It causes the disease called tuberculosis. This disease 

 is not caused by a ptomaine, but by the growth of the bacteria 

 in the lungs, and other parts of the body, where they eat away the 

 tissues of the lungs and form little masses of new tissue, called 

 tubercles. Tuberculosis may be contracted by taking the bacteria 

 into the throat or lungs in the air we breathe. Although there 

 are always some of the germs in the air of an ordinary city street, 

 and though we doubtless take some of these germs into our 

 bodies every day, yet the bacteria seem able to gain a foothold 

 only under certain conditions. It is only when the tissues are 

 in a worn-out condition, when we are '' run down," as we say, that 

 the parasite may obtain a foothold in the lungs. Even if the 

 disease gets a foothold, it is quite possible to cure it if it is taken 

 in time. The germ of tuberculosis is killed by exposure to bright 

 sunlight and fresh air. Thus the course of the disease may be 

 arrested, and a permanent cure brought about, by a life in the 

 open air, the patient sleeping out of doors, taking plenty of nour- 

 ishing food and moderate exercise. 



