THE BACILLUS. 



HAD the learned Linnaeus been informed that there 

 existed a creature of which he had taken no 

 account, which exercised a much larger influence upon the 

 fortunes and happiness of man than any of those which he 

 so laboriously arranged and classified, he would have smiled 

 the smile of incredulity. But just as it is but within the 

 present century that mankind has awoke to the enormous 

 power and usefulness of steam and electricity, so it is only 

 within the last ten or fifteen years that he has attained to 

 the knowledge of the existence of the demon bacillus, who 

 has sprung at a bound into the position of man's deadliest 

 enemy. Secretiveness must be assigned the first place 

 among the characteristics of the bacillus. Since man first 

 appeared upon earth this scourge must have carried on 

 its deadly work, and heaped up a hecatomb of victims in 

 comparison to which those who have perished by war or by 

 famine are but an insignificant handful ; and yet man has 

 pursued his way in the blindest ignorance of the very 

 existence of his indefatigable enemy. 



Even yet comparatively few people are aware of the 

 personal peculiarities of the bacillus, or could describe with 

 any approach to accuracy the difference between the allied 



