Mollycoddling the Microbe 



Some of the deadliest germs are very deli- 

 cate and require plenty of milk and eggs 



T 



HINK of cultivating deadly germs, 

 the typhoid bacillus, for instance 

 with as much 



care and attention to 

 diet and environment 

 as would be given to a 

 delicate orchid or even 

 to a beautiful baby! 

 That is what is being 

 done at the American 

 Museum of Natural 

 History in New York 

 city. 



tjp in one of the 

 tower rooms there is a 

 regular nursery for 

 germs. They live in 

 tubes, rows on rows of 

 them, in neatly ar- 

 ranged and classified 

 wooden racks. Each 

 tube contains a jelly, 

 and on top of this 

 jelly is a wrinkled 

 mass of whitish, yel- 

 lowish or brownish scum. In this scum are 

 the babies — or plants, as the Museum 

 bacteriologist classifies them. 



The jelly is made up of meat, peptone, 

 and the extract from agar, a Japanese sea- 

 weed. Some of the germs, however, are 



fastidious and require egg; others must 

 have blood; still others need milk and 

 special kinds of 

 salts. The food 

 preferences of each 

 particular germ are 

 as carefully studied 

 and compounded as 

 are the special 

 dishes in the diet 

 kitchen of a hospi- 

 tal. 



Some of the 

 bacteria will live 

 for weeks without 

 special attention, 

 while others must 

 be transferred to a 

 fresh tube of food 

 jelly every three 

 days. To transfer 

 them, the bacteri- 

 ologist in charge 

 simply touches the 

 scum in the tube 

 with a platinum needle. The bacteria 

 adhere to the needle but readily drop off 

 into the fresh jelly. The fact that 400,000,- 

 000 of the typhoid bacilli could be packed 

 into a grain of granulated sugar will give 

 some idea of the size of the microbes. 



Needless to say, the germ-filled tubes are han- 

 dled with extreme caution by the examiners 



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In the yellowish, whitish or brownish scum which is to be found in each of the tubes there 

 are millions of infinitesimal microbes feasting and flourishing on the food jelly of their choice 



270 



