2i6 On the Campus 



Bacterial diseases were of old called plagues ; they fell 

 from heaven. Listen to King Lear: 



"Now, all the plagues that in the pendulous air 

 Hang fated o'er men's faults, light on my daughters!" 



Lear, iii: iv, 68. 



or Caliban: 



"All the infections that the sun sucks up 

 From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall and make him 

 By inch-meal a disease!" Tempest, ii: ii, 1. 



or Timon: 



"Be as a planetary plague, when Jove 

 Will o'er some high- voiced city hang his poison 

 In the sick air. " Timon, iv : iii, 108. 



Or they were attributed, as already intimated, to un- 

 seen personal agencies: 



"This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at 

 curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives the web and 

 the pin, squints the eye, and makes the hare-lip; mildews 

 the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth." 



Lear, iii: iv, 120. 



I quote this latter rather also to show the accuracy 

 and compass of Shakespeare's vision. How many peo- 

 ple, not farmers, have seen wheat whitened by the blight ! 

 And that is exactly the description, white not "to the 

 harvest, ' ' but whiter still to sterility and death. 



But leaving aside all microscopic forms which may or 

 may not be incidentally touched upon everywhere, we 

 may turn our attention next to cryptogamic plants which 

 are positively defined. The sudden springing of mush- 

 rooms, for instance, especially at night, so unreal and yet 



