GERMS. 21 



This aids in giving life, force and energy; aids in the 

 tissue-change, and in the production of heat. 



The souring of milk is another example of fermenta- 

 tion. Milk contains about four per cent of casein, or 

 milk-albumin; this is held in solution by a trace of 

 alkaline salt, and is quickly precipated by the addition 

 of an acid. The germs which are floating through the 

 air and which are everywhere present, inhabit the milk 

 and produce the acid by converting the lactose, or 

 milk-sugar into lactic acid. This precipitates the 

 casein, or milk-albumin, in the form of curd. It is 

 from this curd that cheese is made. It also contains 

 the fat from which butter is made. If it is not all 

 worked out of butter it furnishes nourishment for 

 other cell-germs, and these, acting as a ferment, pro- 

 duce butyric and other acids, which make butter rancid. 



In bread baking, yeast-cells acted as the ferment 

 and converted the starch into alcohol and carbonic acid. 

 In the souring of milk, other cells floating through 

 the air acted as a ferment and converted the lactose or 

 milk-sugar into lactic acid. So also when some cells 

 or tissues in the human body die from lack of nourish- 

 ment, as in disease, germ cells that are floating in 

 the air and which inhabit the human system act as a 

 ferment, and by their power to produce change they 

 convert such dead tissue into gases, pus, etc., so that 

 it may be discharged and the system relieved. This is 

 a wise provision and a natural law, but the bacteri- 

 ologists claim that these germs are the cause of nearly 

 all suffering, disease and death. They forget that dis- 

 ease is caused by the accumulation of waste matter in 



