Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 November 1885 — Germs of Disease. [ARTICLE]

Germs of Disease.

Life in this world is, as it were, a balancing or seesaw between different organisms, in which each helps the" rest —a cycle of actions which are to a certain extent dependent on each other. The molecules of the grain of wheat in part help to construct the muscle cells in a man’s arm, and in part furnish fuel or motive power to these cells, while the excreted products of these cells in the form of carbolic acid, urea, etc., and finally the products of the decomposition of these cells, may go to construct a new grain of wheat. But to enable the vegetable to make use of the animal cell as food, the latter must be split up into simpler combinations, and this is effected by microorganisms of various kinds. The great majority of these minute beings are harmless to man so long as they are , confined to his skin and alimentary canal; in fact, every one carries millions of them on and within himself, and it is doubtful whether he could properly digest his food without their help. There are, however, some forms of these little granules and rods, or micrococci and bacteria, which are not so innocent and harmless, but which, on the contrary, produce disease and death in many of those to whose systems they gain admittance. _ Some of these disease germs multi-? ply only within the bodies of 1 iving animals, as, for instance, those which give rise so small-pox and scarlet fever; they retain their vitality for a time when thrown off in excretions; but they do not increase in number until they gain access to living tissues, and hence the diseases which they cause are propagated by contagion only. Other disease germs multiply, so far as we know, almost exclusively outside the living body, and produce their effect on man not by growing within him, but by poisoning him with their (products, as common yeast may be said to be the cause 'of delirium tremens through the agency of the alcohol which it produces. Malaria is a type of this class. A third kind multiply both within and without the living body, and some of these appear to especially multiply and flourish in human excreta. As yet we know very little of the life history of the disease germs, or as to how they produce their effects; we are not'even certain as to whether they are distinct separate species or whether they may not be some of the common micro-or-ganisms which by over-feeding or otherwise have become abnormal; microscopic monsters as it were, producing evil instead of good. What we dp know is that a very minute quantity of excreta from a’case of cholera or oi typhoid fever may, when introduced into the alimentary canal of a healthy person, produce in that person a disease similar to the one from which the germ originally came; and we also have good reason to believe that if a few such germs fall into a mass of excreta, as in a cess-pool, they may under certain conditions multiply very rapidly and render the whole mass of filth infectious, so that any portion of it will be capable of conveying the disease. ~ - ——: — Their action is closely analogous to that of yeast, and the diseases which are supposed to bp due to such action are known as the zymotic or ferment diseases. Hence comes one great danger of regaining or storing in the vicinity of human habitations quantities of organic matter suitable for the nourishment of such organisms, for the channels through which such collections may become dangerously inoculated are so numerous and, in the present state of our knowledge, so impossible to guard against, that casks of powder or cases of dynamite would be really safe neighbors. Sewage is not only a source of danger in this way, but also through the products of its decomposition. The most important of these in this connection are the gases and effluvia evolved in putrefaction, such as hydrogen sulphide, ammonium sulphide, carbon dioxide, and certain organic vapors of very compelx constitution, chiefly characterized by unpeasant odors. When concentrated, as in old cesspools or vaults, these may produce suffocation and almost immediate death, or great postration, violent vomiting and purging, convulsions and death in from one to two days. The circumstances are rare which produce such effects as these; usually the gases are greatly diluted before being breathed, and the effects are less marked. Constant exposure to such air impairs health gradually, but distinctly, especially in infants and children, the symptoms produced/being loss of appetite, languor, slight' headache, etc. — <7. S. Billings, M. D., in Harper’s Magazine.