THE BIOLOGY OF DAILY LIFE. 29 



Let us take the names BACCILLI, BACTERIA, MICRO- 

 COCCI as summing up the chief divisions of the vast 

 host, utterly beyond the powers of human arithmetic 

 to reckon or even estimate, which the microscope 

 reveals to us. 



Their chief characteristic is this. They are ever 

 ready to rush into, and swarm in, every fluid or tissue 

 of the higher animal and human organisms, the very 

 moment the proper vitality of that organism is with- 

 drawn, even partially, and when it is wholly with- 

 drawn by death, they "take over the entire concern 

 in a going condition." 



I shall, I think, prove to the satisfaction of every 

 candid mind that as Nature makes them, nothing 

 can be more useful and honourable than the character 

 and conduct of these microbes. But certain persons 

 have made a regular business of " cultivating" these 

 little plants, and then made a great name for them- 

 selves in the Scientific Market-place. They represent 

 the microbes as the causes of all sorts of horrible 

 diseases, and try to show that by a particular use of 

 their own cultivated microbe, the disease-producing 

 micro-organisms can be starved out. 



As the popular scientific atmosphere is teeming with 

 these representations,* we must proceed in an orderly 

 manner to clear away the libels, first by showing how 

 the very promptness and celerity of the little creatures 

 have laid them open to these accusations. 



I venture upon three illustrations to show how liable 

 persons are to be misrepresented in analogous circum- 

 stances. 



* See, for instance, Trouessart's " Microbes, Ferments and 

 Moulds" (Internal. Sclent. Series.) 



