S4: MICROBES AND THE MICROBE -KILLER. 



the other direction ; for although it is chiefly at home in 

 parts of eastern Europe, western Asia, and some of the 

 islands of the South Pacific, it manages to live in other 

 climates, though not with a like degree of activity and 

 vigor. 



The greatest variety in vegetation is found in the tro- 

 pics ; there, too, we find the greatest variety of animals, 

 and logically we should expect to find there — and we 

 actually do find— the greatest variety of fungoid growths, 

 microbes, and micro-organisms. Warmth and heat are 

 favorable to organic life, but with the increased develop- 

 ment of that we see also an increased development of 

 disease. The temperate zone produces fewer microbes, 

 and it also generates a higher physical excellence and 

 more perfect health to resist their action ; hence follows 

 a minimum of disease, so far at least as the habits of 

 people and the requirements of society permit. 



In the tropics there is not only a higher development 

 of micro-organisms, both animal and vegetable, but also 

 a lower power of resistance in the human frame, and, 

 in consequence, a larger amount of disease, especially of 

 those forms of disease where changes in the blood are 

 brought about by fermentative processes, through the 

 presence of microbes, in the shortest and most thorough 

 manner. It is a matter of common experience that, if 

 we go south in this country, malaria and diseases allied 

 to it are more frequent there, especially in swampy dis- 

 tricts, than they would be in similar localities in Canada. 

 There ague is scarcely known ; and if we pass to Aus- 

 tralia, where the vegetation is immediately antagonistic 

 to the growth of microbes, ague is unknown. A physi- 

 cian who has been a resident of that country for nearly 

 fifteen years, and who has travelled over many thousand 

 miles of it, tells me that he never met with a case of 

 intermittent fever there, and never heard of one. 



Two centuries ago ague was one of the most common 

 diseases in England, and also one of the most fatal. 

 Some of her kings and many members of the royal 

 family died of it. But as the population increased and 



