12B MICROBES AND THE MICROBE-KILLER. 



be applied to mankind without making any mistakes. 

 Nature brings forth new plants and new flowers e very- 

 year by hybridization ; Nature also in the same manner 

 brings forth new microbes, hence we have new diseases. 

 Physicians bother themselves about diagnosis of symp- 

 toms in trying to give the disease a certain name, and 

 while they are delaying and consulting each other the 

 patient dies. 



Another great mistake I found in reading over books 

 treating about bacteriology is the process employed bj 

 those professors to settle the question whether this or 

 that disease is caused by microbes. They generally inject 

 a drop of pus or fermented matter obtained from a sick 

 person under the skin of a rabbit or guinea-pig, to see 

 if the animal will be affected with the same disease. 

 Some of them try to isolate the different microbes con- 

 tained in the fermented matter obtained from a sick 

 person, by raising them artificially on agar-agar, beef 

 broth, potatoes, rice, etc., where the microbes separate 

 into different colonies. These are then injected under 

 the skin of rabbits or guinea-pigs. If the process fails 

 to cause sickness and the same symptoms as those dis- 

 played by the patient from whom the fermentation was 

 taken, then they say that it has not been demonstrated 

 that this particular kind of disease is caused by microbes. 



And so they go on trying to establish diseases caused 

 by microbes on a test which the reader will see, from my 

 observation and experiments made on plants, proves 

 what can be expected. 



I found that if I graft a bud or scion from a peach tree 

 suffering from the blight to a healthy peach seedling, 

 the disease is transferred to the seedling, as can be 

 seen by the yellow leaves. But I have never succeeded 

 in producing the same result by transferring diseases 

 peculiar to the peach tree over into apple, pear, or cherry 

 trees. In fact, the scions or buds refused to unite or 

 grow at all, for the reason that the apple, pear, or cherry 

 is entirely different in growth, structure, sap, leaves, 

 and fruit from peach trees. But, in my opinion, they 



