4 MICROBES AND THE MICROBE -KILLER. 



or life die out, and the microbes are at work. How do> 

 they get there ? From the air, from the water, and 

 from the food. Possibly they create themselves there. 

 Were it not for microbes, wood would never decay, meat- 

 would never spoil, and there could be no such thing pos. 

 sible as fermentation. 



To succeed in causing fermentation, microbes must 

 have air, heat, and moisture. If you deprive them of 

 any or all of these necessities you prevent their opera- 

 tion. Thus it is that frozen meat will keep for a long 

 time. Cold prevents the operations of the microbes, and 

 thus fermentation is arrested. Substances hermetically 

 sealed )h liquids that contain no microbes, and in which 

 it would be impossible for microbes to live, can be kept a 

 long time, and perhaps, under perfect conditions, forever. 



If you can keep microbes away from substances or 

 prepare them so that microbes cannot touch them, those 

 substances can be kept indefinitely. Antiseptics accom- 

 plish this, but the antiseptics known to medical science 

 are not always reliable. If they happen to be so they 

 are necessarily harmful. An egg placed in pure alcohol 

 would never become bad, neither would any kind of 

 meat similarly placed. But pure alcohol — or diluted 

 alcohol, which is inefficacious — injures eggs and meat so 

 that they never could be used. So it is with carbolic acid 

 and the other disinfectants. 



So far we have spoken exclusively of substances as 

 affected by microbes. It is necessary to take but a 

 single step and a new field is opened. Fermentation 

 destroys. So does disease. The decay of a piece of 

 meat is fermentation produced by microbes. So is the 

 decay of the lungs in tuberculosis — or consumption, as 

 it is commonly called— simply fermentation. It is the 

 same with other parts of the body. Decay in different 

 portions will produce different symptoms, and through 

 ignorance physicians have originated names and rem- 

 edies supposed to cure the different symptoms. 



Anything that will prevent the action of microbes 

 must arrest fermentation. Strong antiseptics will do- 



