MIRACLES OF SCIENCE 



microscopic particles hitherto observed bear a definite 

 and causal relation to any disease. 



It is always possible that a germ of microscopic 

 size may escape detection because no proper method 

 has yet been devised of staining it and making it 

 visible. It will be recalled that the now familiar 

 bacillus of tuberculosis escaped detection until Dr. 

 Robert Koch devised a special stain in the year 1882; 

 and the spirillum of syphilis (Spirochaeta or Trepo- 

 nema pallidum), which is a relatively long organism 

 of corkscrew shape, was not discovered until 1905, 

 when Schandinn and Hoffmann devised a stain that 

 'renders it visible. 



The germ of rabies was unknown until the summer 

 of 1913, when Dr. Hideyo Noguchi, the celebrated 

 Japanese pathologist, now of the Rockefeller Insti- 

 tute of New York, announced the discovery of a pro- 

 tozoal organism in the virus. 



RADIUM AND LIFE 



That cancer is due to a living organism is suggest- 

 ed, though by no means demonstrated, by the ob- 

 served fact that in a certain number of cases 

 malignant growths yield to treatment with the new 

 forms of radiant energy. Thus the X-ray has proved 

 curative in some cases of cancer, particularly super- 

 ficial epitheliomas. The radiations from radium, 

 which consist in part of what appears to be a peculiar- 

 ly penetrating type of X-ray, have proved even more 

 efficacious. 



In 1911 a Radium Institute was established in 

 London. The treatment consists in subjecting the 



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