38 THE KINGDOM OF MAN 



and certain a piece of work to be at once accomplished 

 as is the building of an ironclad. But it will not be 

 done for many years because of the ignorance and 

 unbelief of those who alone can act for the community 

 in such matters. The discovery the presentation to 

 the eye and to exploring manipulation of that well- 

 nigh ultra-microscopic germ of death, seemed to me, as 

 I gazed at its delicate shape, a thing of greater signi- 

 ficance to mankind than the emendation of a Greek text 

 or the determination of the exact degree of turpitude of 

 a statesman of a bygone age. 



The knowledge of the causation of disease by bac- 

 terial and protozoic parasites is a thing which has come 

 into existence, under our very eyes and hands, within 

 the last fifty years. The parasite, and much of its 

 nature and history, has been discovered in the case of 

 splenic fever, leprosy, phthisis, diphtheria, typhoid fever, 

 glanders, cholera, plague, lock-jaw, gangrene, septic 

 poisoning (of wounds), puerperal fever, malaria, sleeping 

 sickness, and some other diseases which are fatal to 

 man. In some cases the knowledge obtained has led 

 to a control of the attack or of the poisonous action of 

 the parasite. Antiseptic surgery, by defeating the 

 poisonous parasite, has saved not only thousands upon 

 thousands of lives, but has removed an incalculable 

 amount of pain. Control is slowly being obtained in 

 regard to several others among these deadly microbes 

 in various ways, most wonderful of which is the develop- 

 ment, under man's control, of serums containing anti- 

 toxins appropriate to each disease, which have to be 

 injected into the blood as the means of either cure or 

 protection. But why should we be content to wait 

 long years, even centuries, for this control, when we 

 can have it in a few years ? If more men and abler 



