THE STORY OF THE BACTERIA. 23 



mit. In all natural surface waters, in the soil, 

 on all fruits, vegetables, and plants, in the 

 mouths and digestive canals of men and ani- 

 mals, on the skin, wherever dust can go or 

 collect, there are bacteria of various forms in 

 greater or smaller numbers. 



So common and abundant are the bacteria 

 that we are constantly taking enormous num- 

 bers of them into the system with all of our 

 uncooked food. We should not, however, 

 think of these little organisms which we thus 

 unwittingly consume as things necessarily un- 

 clean or unwholesome, for they are only little 

 cells after all, and nearly all the food which we 

 consume, whether animal or vegetable, is made 

 up of masses of cells which are either fit to eat 

 in their natural condition, as in the pulp of 

 fruits, or become so by simple cooking or other 

 manipulation. 



There is really very little difference so far as 

 wholesomeness is concerned between, the few 

 thousand vegetable cells which we call bacte- 

 ria which may be clinging to the surface of a 

 grape, and a few hundred vegetable cells of 

 larger size of which the grape itself is com- 



