118 MICROBES AND THE MICROBE-KILLER. 



means that the Hving body gradually ferments through 

 the action of many different kinds of microbes, which 

 can be seen when the product of fermentation is placed 

 under a high-power microscope. The ' ' tubercle bacilli '^ 

 are entirely harmless to a healthy person. 



There is no cause for alarm, as the tetanus bacillus, 

 which abounds in our streets, never causes lockjaw un- 

 less some accident causes a wound, allowing it to enter ; 

 then other microbes prepare the seed bed congenial for 

 the growth and propagation of tetanus bacilli, causing 

 the symptoms known as lockjaw. 



Thousands of persons may be seen daily on our streets 

 with all the symptoms indicating consumption. Al- 

 though their sputum be a lively mass of microbes, yet it 

 does not reveal any trace of tubercle till they cough, 

 expectorate, and waste away. Finally their sputum 

 becomes discolored and they spit blood, a sign that 

 tubercles have at last found their proper seed bed pre- 

 pared, and, in company with other microbes, inaugurate 

 the disease called consumption. 



The afore-mentioned explains its cause ; what follows 

 will show its cure. 



Kemarkable though it be, no one has ever stopped 

 to ask what that fermented matter is, nor has any 

 one ever satisfactorily explained it ; and by reading 

 medical publications, and judging from the effects of 

 remedies prescribed for cure, it seems to me that no one 

 knows it. That this is true has been proven by the fact 

 that physicians everywhere tried to kill the *^ tubercle 

 bacilli" with Dr. Koch's lymph, thinking thereby to 

 cure consumption. Koch's lymph contained microbes, 

 factors of fermentation, and they sought to arrest fer* 

 mentation with fermentation. 



Granted that tubercles could be destroyed themselves, 

 then I am fully able to prove by facts that this would 

 never cure consumption, for the simple reason that the 

 stomach and blood of a consumptive person are so full of 

 fermentation and gas, caused by many different kinds 

 of microbes, that the coats of the stomach also ferment. 



