A newspaper's investigation. 17^ 



carbolic acid weak enough to be taken with impunity, it 

 would have no effect upon the microbes. If he could 

 only get an antiseptic gas, he said to himself, which was 

 powerful enough to kill the microbes and still not power- 

 ful enough to injure him, then he might yet recover. 



Up to this time Mr. Eadam had never read a medical 

 book, and he knew nothing about chemicals except those 

 he had used in his greenhouse experiments. Seven 

 years ago a few of the bolder physicians had declared 

 that certain diseases were caused by microbes, but the 

 public did not believe them, and as a matter of fact those 

 physicians were not certain of their claims themselves. 

 But Mr. Eadam had never heard of their discoveries or 

 pretended discoveries. He had worked the theory out 

 himself, reasoning that if Nature had affected plants 

 with microbes, why should she not also affect human be- 

 ings with microbes ? 



To the drug stores Mr. Eadam went and bought all 

 the antiseptics he could. He was not a medical man, 

 but he knew that it was unsafe to play foolishly with 

 chemicals. In other words, he did not dare experiment 

 upon himself. 



One day Mr. Eadam felt convinced that if the medi- 

 cine his doctors were prescribing for him did not stop 

 fermentation outside of the human body, it was not 

 possible for it to stop the fermentation inside. 



Consequently he placed some fermentation which his 

 own lungs had thrown off in his doctor's medicine and 

 corked it up. In a few days the fermentation increased, 

 which conclusively proved that the microbes not only 

 lived but propagated in the medicine which was expected 

 to cure his disease. From that day he has not used a 

 drop of medicine outside of his microbe-killer. 



With the antiseptics he purchased Mr. Eadam experi- 

 mented upon raw meat. None of them came up to the 

 requirements he exacted. If they preserved the meat 

 they injured it. Substances which would not injure the 

 meat were too weak to prevent decay. Then Mr. Eadam 

 began compounding these antiseptics with other drugs. 

 His experiments were not successful. He continued, 



