136 THE STORY OF THE BACTERIA. 



The mysterious veil which has for so long 

 hung over some of the most widespread and 

 terrible of human diseases, is gradually being 

 drawn aside, and we now stand face to face 

 with known and understood and no longer, for 

 the most part, with mysterious and incompre- 

 hensible foes. 



Ten years ago it would have seemed an idle 

 tale had one said that he could cultivate at will 

 in the laboratory the very living essence and 

 causes of such diseases as consumption, typhoid 

 fever, Asiatic cholera, diphtheria, and more of 

 the uncanny brood, and could study and ma- 

 nipulate them as the gardener does his larger 

 plants, and from the knowledge thus gained 

 plan new and efficient means for treating and 

 preventing the diseases which they cause. But 

 all this is strictly true to-day, as we have seen 

 in our review of man's invisible foes and the 

 ravages which they can cause. 



And so at last we are at the end of our 

 story, so far as in such simple and hurried 

 fashion it can be told to-day. It is a story 

 which in parts is full of disquieting and un- 

 pleasant revelations, of facts which at first 



