MICRO-ORGANISMS 



other bacillus. . . . Likewise the ba- 

 cillus of leprosy has come down the same 

 through the ages, from the early dynasties 

 of Egypt, and in the Book of Leviticus 

 it is wisely ordered to burn the plaster of 

 a leper's house. In the sixth chapter of 

 First Samuel, a severe epidemic is nar- 

 rated as having occurred among the 

 Philistines, which must have been the 

 bubonic plague, for the Philistines are 

 said to have made, in order to appease 

 their gods, golden images of buboes and 

 of rats; for the term mice, in the English 

 version, represents a Hebrew word which 

 included both mice and rats. It was not 

 till more than three thousand years had 

 passed that the Japanese bacteriologist, 

 Kitasato, demonstrated that the plague is 

 conveyed to human beings by fleas which 

 have bitten rats sick with the plague. 

 Smallpox was described by Chinese phy- 

 sicians more than a thousand years ago, 



