CHARACTERISTICS OF DISEASE GERMS. 129 



are not as far away as man is from a guinea-pig, rabbit, 

 or mouse. If we look at the form of the blood corpuscles 

 obtained from an ox, fish, frog, or pigeon, we see at once 

 that they are different in size and form. As the blood 

 corpuscles are different in each animal from those of 

 man, this explains why each of them suffers from dis- 

 eases which would never affect man, or vice versa. 



In my article on consumption I have shown that 

 even the tubercle bacilli would refuse to propagate in a 

 healthy person, for the simple reason that each kind of 

 microbe requires a certain seed bed and a certain tempe- 

 rature in which to grow, just as the different varieties of 

 plants require. 



We know very well that not every person catches the 

 cholera, small-pox, diphtheria, typhoid fever, etc., for the 

 simple reason that each variety of microbe and disease 

 germ needs a certain seed bed and temperature in order 

 to grow and develop. The raising of microbes in bottles, 

 injecting them with instruments into small, innocent 

 animals, may look scientific, but my observations of 

 Nature prove that those experiments have nothing to do 

 in settling the question if a certain disease is caused by 

 a certain microbe or not. If the disease is not caused by 

 a microbe, how is it caused, then ? 



Whenever I examine any fermented matter under the 

 microscope I see microbes ; be the matter gall stone, 

 gravel, tubercles, pus, or whatever name the physicians 

 may give, it is life. And that these little creatures 

 possess some sort of sense can be seen by their move- 

 ments. Like stars, some varieties shoot over the field 

 without running into each other, and some of them seem 

 to amuse themselves by trying to catch each other. 

 Sometimes one swims over the field and another follows ; 

 then the first suddenly turns and the other follows in 

 the same angle. Does this not show that even the 

 smallest creatures, that can only be seen when magnified 

 a thousand times, must possess some sort of sense ? And 

 how many microbes may there be which we cannot 

 detect at all ? How many stars do we see, and how many 

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