PERSONAL EXPERIENCES. 31 



periments, and hence to the discovery of a certain and 

 safe means of kiUing fungi and microbes. They kept 

 me to the study of Nature. No medical work or maga- 

 zine would do that. None of them ever directed me to 

 natural sources, but, on the contrary, whenever I took 

 one up it diverted me from the line of my researches, 

 disturbed the tenor of my investigations, and confused 

 my ideas. 



Medical papers would tell me the symptoms of fever 

 or rheumatism or diphtheria. They would describe the 

 microbe of typhoid, compare it with the microbe of 

 other diseases, explain its mode and rapidity of propa- 

 gation, sketch its appearance under the microscope, 

 classify it, and name it, but they would not tell how to 

 kill it. The symptoms which I saw in print were better 

 understood by me in my body. One who has had rheu- 

 matism can certainly comprehend the evidences and 

 feelings better than one who merely writes or reads 

 about it. When I arose in the morning I felt more tired 

 than when I went to bed. When I walked I felt as 

 though there were twenty pounds of lead tied to my 

 feet. When I drove to my seed store I could sit only on 

 the edge of my buggy seat, because the microbes would 

 not let me sit any other way; and when I stepped to the 

 ground it took me several minutes before I could move, 

 the microbes that produced sciatica and rheumatism 

 objecting to being disturbed, and so preventing me. 

 Every attempt to move had to be slow and deliberate 

 until they should get accustomed to the change. I was 

 a living barometer. Whenever the weather altered, and 

 especially if it became cooler, my collection of microbes 

 could anticipate it two or three days, and, when the 

 storm came, they would freeze, and force me to take 

 refuge by a red-hot stove to get them quieted. 



The inevitable result of all this was clear. I had no 

 particular wish to leave the world. It is a pleasant 

 enough place to be in, provided a man has health and 

 some little necessaries. It is possible to imagine that 

 there may be worse. What I had seen of it had been 



