52 MICROBES AXD HEALTH. 



The marshal clubs him down the street, 

 He tells the justice, whom they meet, 

 The justice he don't do a thing 

 But sentence him to. San Quentin." 



The Physician and Surgeon contains in its March 

 number of 1900, page 125, an article written by a bac- 

 teriologist, in which he states : "The tubercle bacillus 

 has been found everywhere tuberculous patients move. 

 What we eat, what we drink, the houses in which we 

 live, the clothes we wear, the furniture, the draperies, 

 the carpets covering the floor, the dust in the streets, 

 the air in the electric car, the luxurious seats of the 

 palace car, the bedding of the magnificent sleeping 

 coaches, the richly furnished apartments of our modern 

 hotels, the modest rooms of the common boarding- 

 houses, the state-rooms of our steamers, the air in the 

 crowded store, public buildings, churches, assembly 

 rooms, theaters, libraries, the dentist chair, the operat- 

 ing tables in the hospital, the ambulance carrying the 

 wounded and sick, the crowded waiting-rooms of lawyers 

 and doctors, the court-room, the concert halls, the 

 hospitals, all of these are liable to be infected by the 

 tubercle bacillus." 



They also tell us consumption is contagious. Can 

 any one reconcile the two statements ? 



Prof. Osier says the distribution of germs is well 

 nigh universal, occuring as they do in the air we 

 breathe, the water and milk we drink, upon the exposed 

 surfaces of man and animals, and in the digestive tract, 

 and in the soil to a depth of about nine feet. But it 

 has been noted that at very high altitudes and in glacier 



