126 A. Modern Bee-Farm 
conscientiously assail my position. They rely upon what 
they know, and what most of us have known since my 
lamented friend Cheshire’s researches have been published 
on the subject, regarding the action of the Baczllus alvet 
as a “continuing” cause of foul brood. Thus, what is 
only a cause of infection is erroneously looked upon as 
the origin of the disease. 
Decomposed Animal Matter and Excreta, 
when once gaining access to the food or water taken 
into the system of the living subject, has resulted in 
infectious diseases (micro-organic) from time immemorial. 
It should be self-evident that only healthy tissue existed 
prior to the arrival of that disordered condition which 
primarily enabled the parasitic microbe to live and thrive 
upon it; z¢. before there existed any other relative 
animal matter in a diseased state from which micro-. 
organic infection could be carried. The same disease can 
therefore again “originate” in those combinations of 
matter acting in opposition to the laws of health, without 
any contact with existing infected animal matter. 
One may build a new house, he may place there a 
family with no trace of disease for years before or after, 
and yet ultimately through some defect in sanitary condi- 
tions, that house becomes the habitation of disease, and a 
source of infection through the medium of micro-organisms 
therein developed. It may be the water is contaminated 
by the choking of a sewage pipe, but its contents 
nevertheless are the refuse of the inmates, and from them 
has been conveyed some hidden seed undiscovered and 
unsuspected until the suitable soil occurred for the seed 
to germinate and spread devastation around. 
We may well consider that man carries within him 
hidden seeds of disease, which may or may not develop 
