112 
WORLD OF INVISIBLE LIFE 
What would 
happen if there 
were no microbes? 
would remain in a form that other plants and 
animals would be unable to use as food. Here 
is where the microbes do their greatest service. 
They break up the dead bodies into materials 
that become once more a part of the air and 
soil, where they can be used to feed new living 
things. 
This decay is going on everywhere about us 
all the time. If it did not take place, the dead 
bodies of plants and animals would soon pile 
up on the earth and no living things could exist, 
because there would be no food or even room 
for them. And since this breaking up of dead 
bodies is entirely the work of microbes, without 
them, there could be no life on earth. So let us 
never forget that, although microbes cause the 
illness and death of living creatures, they also 
make it possible for plants, animals, and human 
beings to live. 
A most useful wor\ of 
microbes is causing decay 
