CHAPTER XV. 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND SUMMARY. 



The reader who has carefully perused the preceding 

 -chapters and examined the photographs of microbes will 

 possess a better and more thorough knowledge of a diffi- 

 cult scientific subject than possessed by ordinary medical 

 scientists. In fact, if the reader has become convinced 

 that the cause of all disease is fermentation, that this 

 fermentation is caused by microbes, that in order to 

 cure disease you must stop fermentation, and that in 

 order to stop fermentation you must kill the microbes 

 which cause it, the object of the author in writing this 

 book is accomplished. A few general observations on 

 microbes is all that is now necessary. 



Fungi differ from all other vegetable organizations, as 

 I hinted previously. Other plants live upon inorganic 

 food, and produce protoplasm by the combination of 

 water, ammonia, and carbonic acid, whereas fungi live 

 upon organic matter and are genuine parasites. Some 

 even propagate in a sexual manner, and for that reason 

 have been placed by a few biologists in the animal king- 

 dom, but the distinction is not universally acknowledged, 

 and they still hold their place in the vegetable kingdom. 

 In the production of diseased conditions the fungus is no 

 less active than the yet more simple forms — in fact, it is 

 probably more active, since it seems to possess a greater 

 power in promoting fermentation. The exact rationale 

 of this process has not, so far as I am aware, ever been 

 explained, but when we know the peculiar difference 

 that separates a fungus from other plants it is not diffi- 

 cult to form a theory. Take, for example, the microbe 

 of intermittent fever. This circulates in the blood. It 

 lives upon the blood corpuscles, destroying their vitality 



