76 The Story of the Bacteria 



career, became convinced that the poison 

 causing childbed fever could be carried on 

 the clothes of the physician from one patient 

 to another. What the poison was he could 

 not even fairly conjecture, but of the fact he 

 was certain. In spite of much opposition 

 and ridicule he urged his views, and many 

 lives were ultimately saved and epidemics 

 stayed because of his persistency in making 

 known his facts. To-day we not only know 

 that all that he urged was true, but the 

 poison which he assumed but could not see 

 has been proved to be bacteria, and we can 

 now cultivate them in tubes and know exactly 

 what will most surely destroy them. While 

 literature owes much to the wit and cleverness 

 of the genius of the breakfast-table, science 

 and humanity are not less debtors to the zeal 

 and pertinacity of the young doctor, who still 

 declared for his beliefs, though his more aged 

 and then more renowned confreres applied to 

 him many terms of opprobrium and disrespect. 

 Now let us look a little more closely at 

 the way in which these tiny organisms induce 

 inflammation, suppuration, or the formation 



