GERMS: GOOD AND BAD. 143 



as great as the population of London. Graphic as is this 

 estimate, the idea of the actual size of the individual 

 germs remains simply unattainable. It is this dimi- 

 nutive size compared with the great results in the way 

 of disease certain of these germs may and do produce, 

 which is more than sufficient to appal us. 



Think for a moment of that fatal lt wool-sorters' 

 disease" which was formerly prevalent in Brad- 

 ford. This ailment is caused by the entrance into 

 the human frame of a minute germ, or bacillus (fig. 30), 

 with which we are, microscopically, perfectly well 

 acquainted. Sown somehow in the body through 

 handling the wool of animals 

 which have died of a similar dis- 

 ease (known in the animal as 

 "splenic fever") this particle grows 

 and multiplies as we have seen, 

 and kills mankind through its 

 abundant self- reproduction into 

 thousands within the human 



tissues Fig.y). Bacillus anthrach. 



Upon human life it would, therefore, seem that 

 disease-germs work their will unmolested. Yet this is 

 by no means the case. Science has, in truth, been 

 up and doing for years past, teaching us how we may 

 scorch and destroy these particles, how we may limit 

 their spread, and how we may protect ourselves and 

 our goods and chattels against their attack. We are 

 far from being helpless in the war we wage against 

 germs, and every year that passes over our heads 

 proves this statement true. The deaths from germ- 

 produced fevers and allied ailments show a steady 

 decrease year by year, and in due season we may 

 reduce such a death-rate to a miserable minimum if 



