THE MIGHTY MITE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 162, 11 July 1925, Page 21

THE MIGHTY MITE.

AERIAL ENEMIES. (By PEBITUS.) Researches by bacteriologists become ever more exciting as the habitat anl habits of the minute creatures of earth, and air, and water become better known. The hunter of big game runs no greater risk, and has no better sport, than tho biologist and bio-chemist with microscope, slide, cover-glass, Canada balsam, and culture cupboard. It is their constant regret that their eyes are not double compound microscopes of extra power (as Sam Weller declared his were not), and that opticians appear unable to overcome the difficulties caused by refraction, and tho rays of light "beyond the violet." When the "Invisible Man" made himself invisible by acquiring personal transparency (after trying it on the cat), he did no more than some of our microscopic neighbours are able to do. Some of the living possessors of translucency can be dried and dyed, and in this way examined by the microscopist, but it is suspected that there are many varieties in countless millions which evade capture, slide through the finest filter defeat the microscope, and continue to be in undetected alliance with man's "last enemy," death. It is about one hundred year* since. that wonderful and patient worker, Pasteur, was born, and to whose imagination and steady, experimental study we owe all we know of what we, perhaps foolishly, call the "lower forms of life." These tiny creatures which can form processions, herd together in selfformed colonies, group themselves in definite patterns, select the best feeding and breeding grounds, reproduce themselves, secrete poisons and destroy beings a billion billion times greater than themselves, whose system of life is so orderly that we are able to note and record it, we disrespectfully class as "lowest forms of life." At this moment hundreds of clever men are planning and scheming how best to defeat the dangerous attacks of these despised bacteria, which inhabit the earth, the air (for at least 1500 feet up from the surface), and probably occupy homes not only in all living things, and in dead things which have lived, but in most, if not all, inanimate substances. They cleanse or contaminate water, cause decomposition, promote chemical changes, render the earth fertile, and bring to man both health and disease, according to their nature. The human skin is not easily entered by such microbes as we know, and man's natural covering seems to have automatically grown as a protective armour against bacterial invasion, but let there be the smallest breach in that armour, and if tho attacking forces of those without are not met by defenders from within, the ever-waiting, ever-watchful foes will find a new horne —to our discomfort and possible decease. There is no doubt that bacteria are very much alive. To quote an authority: "Their bodies contain proteins, constituents of protoplasm, which are never met except as products of living matter." They possess the power of feeding, building up new compounds, some of them (ferments) more active in producing chemical changes than anything the chemist can apply, and the poisons they emit are (for higher animals) the most powerful known. In a sense they are immortal, for each entity can divide itself into two, each of which can repeat the process, and so on, endlessly. Some of the little wretches can walk—perhaps I should say swim— by means of a number of quivering thread-like arms —possibly called legs in bacterialand. Bacteria, yeasts, and fungi are somewhat nearly allied, and closely enough to be akin to the tramp's mongrel clog, which was "near 'miff to a tarrier to scare a rat, an' so like a groy'ound no hare wud know no different." Bacteria are food faddists, and most like their surroundings damp and dark. Some like air, some do not. They will hibernate in extreme cold, flourish ill moderate warmth, and faint and die in extreme heat—very human in many ways. It is probable that they_ have their diseases, and their domestic and political (or social) troubles also! We speak of the "infinitely great" and the "infinitely small," but as our limited conception of things will not travel either way to infinity, the words so used have no real meaning. They do not even express a conceivable idea. The flea with smaller fleas, the box within a box, the re-re-reflection of a chain of mirrors all carry us quickly beyond clear thinking into a mist of mental obfuscation. It is possible that as we become acquainted with greater numbers of our littlo neighbours we shall find more difficulty in giving each its place and designation. Twenty years ago I knew a doctor's daughter, who was one of the first to "buster" her hair, and dress like a man. Strangers would address her as "sir." If we so easily err with our own kind, it will not be wonderful if diagnosis of disease by microscope docs not always prove accurate, harmless and harmful bacteria being confused. To escape being tho host of such bacteria as are our enemies is obviously impossible, so that to know them, and particularly the best way to compass their destruction, is the aim of curative and preventive medicine. It is remarkable that children newly born, with only such ' slight protection as inheritance give; them, do not all die, but in sound health at any age there is an army resi dent in tho body, and manufactories o! chemical extinguishers (tho glands) which are perpetually guarding from and fighting off, attacks. Disinfectants were once thought to be of onormou. value, but experiments have proved that Pye Chevasse was not far wrong wher he said that "disinfectants were useful because they smelt so badly that those who used them wcro driven to opcr their windows and let in the healing air." Bacteria aro not easily killed by oxygen or disinfectants, but, like most devotees of Bacchus, they hato dryness and most of them abandon activity when properly boiled. Once in the human body, however, the microbio in vasion is best dealt with by the use ol a constituent of the blood of an anima' rendered immune by deliberate gradu ated poisoning with the offending microbe or its toxin. An animal (or a patient) can he so stimulated by a mild attack of disease that the protective organisms produced by the blood of thi animal act as a defence against the organisms of disease. Tho value of | anti-toxins is proved beyond question, ' but tho use of killed bacteria is not based upon so sound a foundation ot success. Where disease is produced by a poison secreted by bacteria, an antidote seems' most reliable. When disease is set up by the mere presence of bacteria, their direct destruction by an opposing party of micro- .' organisms is more effective than is a I dru" turned loose in the circulation with the same object. -_ ffo fet QtmVtovi*_i_