16 MICROBES AND THE MICROBE- KILLER. 



If we examine a piece of lumber that has been lying 

 for some time under the influence of air and moisture, 

 and especially if the sunlight has been limited, fungoid 

 growths may be seen upon the surface — and the practical 

 problem put before us is how to get rid of them, and so 

 to preserve the timber from destruction. Let any textile 

 fabric — a man's coat or a woman's gown — get wet and 

 be put away in that condition in a close closet. In a 

 very short time fungoid matter can be detected by the 

 musty smell that is given off, even though it may not 

 be perceptible to the unaided eye. Leave the clothes 

 in this condition for a short time, and they rot and 

 fall to pieces. In each of these illustrations the fungi 

 are different (see Plate I.) ; and our purpose is not so 

 much to know how they would be classified by the bio- 

 logist as it is to learn the means by which to get rid of 

 them. It is the same throughout. It would be easy to 

 enumerate hundreds, ay, thousands, of similar exam- 

 ples, and in every one the cause is the same, the proofs 

 being so marked and so unanswerable that none but a 

 person who is wilfully ignorant or who is blinded by 

 prejudice could possibly question them. 



The special study of microbes as a branch of biological 

 science is full of interest and value, but it is not material 

 to a practical application of remedial agents in the 

 treatment of disease. It is well to identify the special 

 microbes of typhoid and tetanus in the ground, butvv^hen 

 it comes to treating either of those diseases it is of no 

 moment that two specific germs are there. It suffices to 

 destroy them, and one treatment will do that. Thus, 

 then, it is not necessary to my present purpose to clas- 

 sify the microbes that are met with, and it is only as 

 indicating the progress of the study that I refer to that. 

 My object is rather to point out the all-important part 

 they take in the causation of disease, and to make known 

 the means by which they may be destroyed and pre- 

 vented from increasing, that thus the substance in 

 which they are found may be preserved. In subsequent, 

 chapters I shall show more fully how this is done. 



