90 MICROBES AND HEALTH. 



Yellow fever? No. 



Cholera? No. 



Scarlet fever ? No. 



Measles ? No. 



Influenza ? No. 



Diphtheria? No. (See antitoxin for diphtheria.) 



Bubonic plague? No. Neither will it cure any 

 other disease. 



Health boards know these statements are true, yet 

 they continue to send out their delusive advertisements 

 concerning antitoxins, and incidentally, of course, they 

 advertise themselves at the same time. 



The true doctor thinks of his laborious duties, his 

 constant study over perplexing medical problems, his 

 gradually acquired knowledge of drugs, of symptoms 

 and of the laws of health; then he looks at a vial of 

 antitoxin, he reads the outrageous price asked for the 

 humbug, he hears the imbecile scientific prattle which 

 supports its claims, he thinks of giving a patient poi- 

 soned serum depraved by the septic processes going on 

 in the animal from which it was obtained, then he 

 laughs long and softly as he thinks: "What fools we 

 mortals be!" 



For years germ theorists have taught that milk, 

 used as food, has been a more or less common source 

 for the spread of tuberculosis, or consumption. In 

 .fact, so widespread has a belief in this teaching become 

 that many states have enacted laws resulting in the 

 destruction of vast numbers of cattle, supposed to 

 have been infected with the so called consumptive 

 germ; but we now learn that the evidence upon which 



