244 SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR 



stand its mode of dispersal and infection, and consequently 

 how to avoid its attack. It is cultivated in the laboratories 

 devoted to the study of such matters kept in confinement, 

 so to speak, for ten years and more and its properties 

 and conditions of life are well known. For instance, it is 

 destroyed by " dryness," hence it cannot be carried in a 

 living infective state as "dust" in the air. It is also 

 destroyed by exposure to a heat a good deal below that 

 of boiling water, so that water itself can be freed from it 

 by boiling, and food dipped in boiling (or nearly boiling) 

 water, or heated on a metal tray beneath which a spirit 

 or gas flame is burning, can be rendered safe just before 

 it is swallowed, even when cholera is rife in the neighbour- 

 hood. Ordinary lime is a great destroyer of the bacillus, 

 and can be used on a large scale to abolish it in refuse. 



When the cholera is near one cannot be too scrupu- 

 lously clean. The fingers must be carefully washed with 

 antiseptic before a meal, and everything purified by heat 

 only a few moments before being put into the mouth, 

 since flies and careless handling may soil food or anything 

 else exposed in a cool condition even for a few minutes. 

 It is best when cholera is actually present in the house or 

 town in which you live to swallow nothing which has been 

 allowed to get cool ; everything should be heated and 

 eaten when hot. Mephistopheles, in Goethe's Faust, 

 complains of the swarming, pullulating life on the earth. 

 He the great destroyer says : 



" How many have I sent to grass ! 

 Yet young, fresh blood, do what I will 

 Keeps ever circulating still. 

 In water, in the earth, in air, 

 In wet, dry, cold everywhere 

 Germs without number are unfurl'd, 

 And but for fire, and fire alone, 

 There would be nothing in the world 

 That I could truly call my own." 



