THE BACTERIA SCARE 163 



It is said that every form of error may be traced to 

 faulty logic; here the trouble seems to be that the 

 premises are false. "Meat contains many bacteria. 

 All bacteria are harmful, therefore, etc." The inves- 

 tigators do not state the kind of bacteria nor the way 

 they came to be present in the meat, and evidently 

 they believe that meat in and of itself is naturally 

 and normally laden with these minute forms of life. 

 As a matter of fact though results of a different 

 character have been reported not infrequently, care- 

 fully made and carefully controlled laboratory work 

 with all precautions taken has shown that the raw 

 flesh of healthy animals is stirile, and only in certain 

 animal diseases is bacterial life present in the tissues. 



All living things, both plants and animals, are sub- 

 ject to bacterial diseases, but if bacteria are found on 

 raw or cooked meat from healthy animals it is safe 

 to say that they were lodged there by passing air 

 currents just as they are lodged on any other food 

 thus exposed. Rightly interpreted then, the labora- 

 tory experiments indicate that all foods should be 

 protected from accidental contamination by bacteria, 

 as harmful species may be present among them, not 

 that meat should be excluded from the diet because 

 bacteria happen to be found on it. 



A very few bacteria, not more than 50 or 60 

 species, are known to be harmful, many are known 

 to serve a useful function and it is thought that some 

 varieties may even prove to be necessary to the 

 digestive processes. The intestinal tract of man 

 swarms with bacte-.a, and the experimenter has 

 never been able to free from bacteria the digestive 

 tract of an animal that has once lived under normal 

 conditions. Of the foods we eat there are absolutely 

 none free from bacteria, if we except cooked food 



