32 MICROBES AND THE MICROBE-KILLER. 



satisfactory enough in some respects, and I determined 

 to stay a little longer, if I could. At the same time I 

 knew that there must be a change, that things could 

 not go on as they were for long, or that, if they did, I 

 must make up my mind to follow my children, whither 

 we must all go sooner or later. I had taken all the 

 remedies that were presented to me ; I had seen my 

 children pass away ; I had observed death around me 

 striking down the young and the old, and I myself was 

 far on my way to the same fate ; what wonder should 

 there be, then, if I realized the momentous fact that 

 physicians cannot cure disease — in other words, that 

 medicine does not destroy microbes? 



Good friends were generous with their advice. I was 

 told to try first one thing, then another, but I had be- 

 come wearied with what I had come to believe was so 

 much humbug, and I determined to swallow no more 

 medicine. I again studied advertisements. There I 

 saw commended electric belts, porous plasters, liniments, 

 lotions, and salves, and all sorts of external applications 

 that would cure everything, purify the blood, strength- 

 en the nerves, stimulate the functions of all the organs, 

 kill the microbes, and rejuvenate the individual in mind 

 and body. Well, this was something. Whatever such 

 things would or would not do, there was no medicine in 

 them — nothing to swallow, no poison— so, if they did no 

 good, I could not see that they would do harm. The 

 end of my thinking was that I sent off ten dollars to 

 Chicago for an electric belt. Some of the advertising 

 firms fail to respond, as they promise, to money remit- 

 tances, but my belt came, and I lost no time in fixing it 

 on. It reminded me of former days when I jumped 

 ditches eight feet wide, and sang and laughed when 

 others fell into the water. But now things were changed. 

 Then I had health and youth, now I was far older in 

 health than in years ; but I concluded that, being but 

 forty -three, if the belt did all that was promised for it, 

 there should be no reason why I might not live forty 

 years or more yet. So I gave the belt a good chance. 



