30 THE BIOLOGY OF DAILY LIFE. 



If an inhabitant of some other sphere, ignorant of the 

 ways of men, were to come and see how even the most 

 respectable and solemn undertaker conducts his busi- 

 ness, he might easily fall into a serious mistake as he 

 watched him at the task of putting away a corpse. 

 How much more if this visitor were to come upon 

 some plague- stricken city, when the dead-cart was 

 going its rounds, and the dead bodies hurried out for 

 burial. Might not such a visitor very naturally mistake 

 these prompt and useful ministers of health and public 

 safety for, perhaps, murderers and manslayers? 



A traveller, ignorant of the habits of vultures, and 

 unable to explain the marvellous instinct or quickness 

 of sight or scent, which enables these aerial under- 

 takers to be in at the death, or before death has quite 

 come, might naturally suppose that the vultures caused 

 the death of the corpse they were devouring. 



But these evil surmisings would be quite erroneous. 

 They are not the causes, but the concomitants of Death, 

 nay rather, they are ministers of Health. 



Now can we wonder that microscopists, peering 

 down upon fragments of that wondrous parasitic world, 

 should fall into a similar mistake ; and because these 

 pigmy hosts are ever waiting at all the avenues and 

 doors, to seize upon the products of disease, and tread 

 so very close upon the footsteps of retiring vitality, 

 suppose them to cause what at most they only 

 facilitate ? 



There is a story told* of a man who was caught in 

 the act of bending over a victim of murder in a bed- 



* In a pamphlet published a good many years ago, " Vaca- 

 tion Thoughts on Capital Punishment," by a barrister. I cite 

 the story from memory. 



