18 MICROBES AXI) HEALTH. 



reach down into the earth and form a root, after which 

 it is able to care for itself. This change is but a pro- 

 cess of fermentation. We see something new has been 

 produced. The gluten is converted into diastase and 

 the starch into alcohol, and a germ cell has developed 

 into a plant or tree. Undoubtedly there are other germ 

 cells in the soil which, acting as a ferment, aid in the 

 process by producing certain changes in such elements 

 of the soil as are needed to nourish the plant. These 

 changes render the elements in a condition to be more 

 readily taken up by the plant tissues. 



In the Washington Times of January 27, 1901, that 

 eminent authority, Dr. William Osier, M. D., F. R. S., 

 professor of medicine in the Johns Hopkins University, 

 Baltimore, says: 



"Quite astonishing is the discovery that within the 

 knobs of peas and beans live bacteria which by split- 

 ting up mineral salts containing nitrogen and by ab- 

 sorbing nitrogen from the air, give it over to the plant 

 so that it is enabled to grow luxuriantly whereas, with- 

 out their presence the tiller of the soil might fertilize 

 the soil in vain. It is quite possible that not alone 

 peas and beans, but all grasses, plants and trees de- 

 pend upon the presence of such germs for their very 

 existance, which in turn supply man and animals with 

 their means of existance. Hence we see that these 

 nitrifying bacteria, as they are called, if swept out of 

 existance, would be the cause of cessation of all life 

 upon the globe. And arguing backward, one promi- 

 nent authority states it as his belief that the first of 

 all life on this earth were those lowly forms of plants 



