178 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [August, 



mentation or disease. Indeed, it is a veiy difficult matter to deprive 

 some bacteria of their vitality ; they may be frozen or even heated to the 

 boiling point of water, and yet many of them are not destroyed. They 

 may be kept dried for years, and yet, when in a favorable medium, if 

 pathogenic, ai'e capable of producing disease. 



Wherever bacteria are found abundantly, decomposing nitrogenous 

 organic matter is always present, and Pasteur has shown that they do 

 not multiply without a putrefactive environment, but remain infertile 

 until they perish. Bacteria of putrefaction and infection flourish most 

 abundantly in a neutral or an alkaline menstrum, such as is generally 

 found in decomposing sewage matter and the effluvium from sewers ; 

 but they are readily destroyed in acid solutions. It has also been ob- 

 served that the bacteria producing acid fermentations perish in alkaline 

 liquids. 



Standard authorities agree that alkaline waters are dangerous for 

 drinking, since they may favor the development of infectious germs. 

 Water that contains an excessive quantity of the alkaline carbonates 

 tends to make the system alkaline, and physicians often find it neces- 

 sary to put patients suffering with digestive, intestinal, and renal 

 diseases, upon distilled water as a beverage, and with happy effects. 



The infectious bacteria are liable to multiply rapidly on alkaline mu- 

 cous membranes. This is the case with the micrococcus of diphtheria, 

 when carried into the air-passages. The only guai^antee against this 

 disease is isolation from the micro-organisms that produce it. What 

 is true of the air-passages is also true of the alimentary canal, for in 

 persons afflicted with digestive disorders, in which the gastric juice is 

 constrained, pathogenic germs may find a fertile soil and multiply with 

 great rapidity. In the healthy human stomach infectious germs do not 

 thrive, as the I'eaction therein is acid ; a free supply of gastric juice 

 will kill and digest them. 



A good corrective for alkaline polluted waters is sulphuric or phos- 

 phoric acid. These acids arrest putrefaction and destroy the germs. 

 Workmen, whose employment, location, and habits, favor an attack of 

 a zymotic disease, sometimes prevent an epidemic by drinking water 

 acidified with one or two drops of sulphuric acid per pint. Sulphuric 

 acid is also used with great advantage in treating cases of cholera and 

 typhoid fever, by giving ten to thirty drops of the acid in water three 

 times a^day. Owing to the power of certain reagents in rendering bac- 

 teria latent, or in destroying them, there has arisen in modern medicine 

 this antiseptic method of treatment. Hydronaphthol is also, recom- 

 mended as a corrective for polluted water ; it is a powerful germicide, 

 ' but it is harmless to the human system. Pyridine, a constituent of 

 tobacco smoke, is also a powerful destroyer of bacteria. It is claimed 

 that men who use tobacco are less susceptible to zymotic infection than 

 those who do not use it, and that women are more frequently attacked 

 with typhoid fever and diphtheria than men. If this be true, it is, 

 however, more likely due to the sex than to the antiseptic agent used. 



The infectious bacteria are thrown off" with the excretions of persons 

 suffering from zymotic diseases, and these germs not infrequently find 

 their way to water supplies, and therefore to persons who, from pre- 

 disposing causes may be in a suitable condition for their reception and 

 multiplication, and for the production of a specific form of disease ; 



