THE EVIL OF BACTERIA 



their germs, if present, and to avoid their later intro- 

 duction from without, have revolutionized the art. 

 Operations are now undertaken with impunity and 

 with the assurance of success that less than a genera- 

 tion ago would have been almost as necessarily fatal as 

 decapitation itself. With proper care their exclusion 

 and consequently, septicaemia; can almost always be 

 avoided. 



Instruments of evil, as Bacteria thus often are, 

 many of them are yet of great utility. The Bacteria 

 Termo is most frequently the organism by which the 

 effete tissues of the dead animal or plant are decom- 

 posed, and their elements returned to the soil or 

 atmosphere, again to enter into new living struc- 

 tures. If any forms of once living tissue, muscular 

 fibre, meat broth, farinaceous food, vegetables or their 

 infusions, are subjected to the temperature of boiling 

 water, so as to destroy the Bacteria and germs that 

 may be present, the said substances may be preserved 

 indefinitely, even if the free access of air be per- 

 mitted ; provided that care be taken to filter out, or 

 otherwise remove, all germs that may be present in 

 the entering air. Without Bacteria, the Earth would 

 be covered with the dead remains of past vitality, 

 locking up in a useless form the molecules that have 

 served their part in maintaining the life that is gone, 

 but which the Bacteria set free to enter the store- 



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