PAET I 

 WHAT THEY ABE 



CHAPTER I 



THEIR NAME 



AT a meeting of the French. Academy of Sciences, 

 held March 11, 1878, one of the principal points for 

 discussion was whether the then newly discovered 

 germs producing disease were plants or animals. 

 The assembly was about evenly divided. One por- 

 tion contended that the germs were all plants and 

 should be called microphylaria, a word meaning 

 small plants; the other that they were all animals, 

 and should be called microzoaria, a word meaning 

 small animals. The discussion was lengthy and 

 waxed warm. Finally, Sedilot, an eminent French 

 surgeon, arose in the assembly, and proposed a new 

 name for these germs. He would call them mi- 

 crobes. His word had never before been spoken. 

 The surgeon coined it then and there expressly to 

 meet this occasion. The term means, he explained, 

 a small living being, whether that being is plant or 

 animal. If, on further study and investigation, the 

 germs in question should be found to be plants, 

 they would be properly named by calling them mi- 



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