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Show Why We Behave Like Human Beings B7 CEORGE DORSEY, Ph. D, LL. D. PASTEUR'S TREMENDOUS DISCOVERY TS 1683 there lived a curious I Dutchman who ground lensea. He scraped some tartar from his teeth, mixed It with water, and examined ex-amined It nnder his lens. What b saw was a more astounding sight than that which confronted Balboa, who, from his peak In Darien, aw a lot of water. For ages man had known of the Pacific Pa-cific ocean and millions of men had sailed Its deeps; Leeuwenhoek, the Delft lensmaker, was the first human hu-man being to see a bacterium. And the world promptly forgot him and continued for a century and a half to argue "spontaneous generation" and to exorcise devils as causes of disease. It remained for Louis Pasteur (1822-95) to prove the part bacteria played In decay, putrefaction, fermentation, and many other processes until then hidden from the ken of man. Koch, in 1873, proved the casual relation between the bacillus anthracls and the disease anthrax, and In 18S2 Invented In-vented the "solid culture media" for the study of bacteria. Pasteur founded a new science biology ; Koch revolutionized man's attitude atti-tude toward the world and gave the human race Its first rational theory of disease. Bacteria are bo small that almost nothing of their anatomy Is known bat their shape, and that changes according to circumstances. They not only vary during their life cycle, but as individuals; even abnormal ab-normal and monstrous forms are found. Bacteria show amazing vital capacity. ca-pacity. They can defy hours of boiling water; their spores can resist re-sist a temperature of 212 degrees. Some sulphur bacteria haunt hot springs In water at 190 degrees. Some multiply at freezing point. Typhoid and diphtheria germs will live for days in a temperature of liquid air (284 below zero). Some bacteria have been known to defy liquid hydrogen temperature (464 below zero). Even more astonishing Is their capacity to multiply. One becomes two by simple division. The germ of Asiatic cholera can be divided every 15 minutes. Within 24 hours one could become 78,700,000,000,000,-000,000,000,000,000; 78,700,000,000,000,-000,000,000,000,000; but the victim is usually dead In less than 12 hours, killed by the toxins of these prodigious workers. In growing and dividing, they have consumed food and liberated carbon dioxide. They are foreigners in our system, living at our expense and leaving their toxic garbage for us to eliminate. elim-inate. . The air we brr''0 r.-d tlMT ioou1 we eat are fun of bacteria, and our body Is covered with them. This Is not literally true, but It Is true enough to emphasize the question : why are they not always more promptly fatal? Many factors enter en-ter Into the case. For example, an entire group of bacteria live on our BKin, wnere iney are utuuness. A scratch or a pin prick opens the skin. Now they are Inside our body, but the only damage may be a boll or a pimple. Bolls are usually usu-ally not contagious and rarely fatal. Sometimes they are. It all depends. de-pends. Wlilch brings us up to Immunity. But note, first, that there are many kinds of Immunity and back of all the same principle: I am either Immune or I am not If I tnke It or catch It, I am not immune; if I do not catch It, I am Immune. But may go down with It tomorrow! In other words, there are variable factors which will determine my predisposition to Infection or my power of resistance against infection infec-tion : age, hunger, thirst, fatigue, exposure to extremes of heat and cold, are such variable factors. Even different strains of bacteria vary' In their Intensity i diphtheria and influenza, for example. There are mild epidemics, there are severe se-vere epidemics. Again, certain diseases dis-eases seem to predispose toward Invasion by the germs of other diseases. dis-eases. Acute tuberculosis may follow fol-low on the heels of measles; streptococci strep-tococci may Invade lungs already occupied by tubercular bacilli. Typhoid Ty-phoid fever and pneumoniu, diphtheria diph-theria and scarlet fever, syphilis and gonorrhea, are well known combinations of diseases. Trypanosoma, the germ of sleeping sleep-ing sickness, Is carried by files from animal to animal. The disease la almost regularly fatal. By having smallpox we acquire immunity from smallpox, also by vaccination. Against typhoid, from plague and Asiatic cholera, we acquire ac-quire Immunity by vaccination with dead bacteria "cultures." With a secretion (or excretion) of living bacteria we acquire Immunity from diphtheria. In other words, we become actively Immune by Incorporating Incor-porating Into our body "live, virulent viru-lent bacteria, less virulent bacteria, dead bacteria, bacterial secretions, or bacterial products from broken-down, broken-down, dead bacteria." An antibacterial anti-bacterial scrum Is a protective; an antitoxin serum Is a curative. Much Is known of the "how" of Immunity, almost nothing of the "why." Quinine Is specific death for malaria ma-laria germs; Ipecacuanha for the Bineba which causes amebic dysentery. dysen-tery. Possibly chaulaioogra oil Is a specific cure for leprosy; as-phenamin as-phenamin ("PKj"), for s.vpiiilis, re-lapsing re-lapsing fever, and yaws; atoxyl, for sleeping sirknes. The list of specific cures Is pitiably srn.-ill yet. I'.aeteriolnpy Is new, Immunology U newer. by Georce A. Dor7.) |