Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 1892. Infectious Germs.

Manawatu Herald, 16 April 1892, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 1892. Infectious Germs.

To comprehend the liability to disease it is necessary to appreciate the wonderful mystery of the formation of the human body. Within ourselves there is a world of cells, distinct from microstores, yet actually living, working, eating and drinking and moving. They undertake the great work of keeping the human body together. They receive the food, separate it, place it to its different uses, and while treated temperately and properly are able to wage war with the unse9n enemies waiting their opportunity to enter our system? and kill us and eat us. If the enemy is successful in their attack we know that they lose little time in reducing the body to unseen partioles. If we are able to treat our friendly cells properly, they flourish and are known to simply absorb and make away with the unfriendly ones. A Mons. Metschinikoff has absolutely seen the germs of an invading army attacked and eaten up by the healthy blood cells. Thus for an infectious disease to lay hold of a man there must be the soil in which the germ is to grow or flourish. A tendency, an inherited weakness must, as a rule, exist first. Of course there must be the distributor of the germ and the germ. If the soil is unfit, that is, too healthy, the seed may be dropped in thousands, but it never germinates. But if both the former cases were favourable, yet if prope^ precautions are taken, acting as on e

fore-warned and fore-armed, the see'd j may never be given a chance fcd enter the system* Though there are a vast majority of germs, yet fortunately most are harmless, and "when we learn that these germs propogate, in some cases, at the rate of one hundred thousand an hour, we should be truly thankful that it is so, especially as they are said to multiply by fissure, or breaking off, and by spores. The spores have wonderful vital power Some germs, again, must have air to breathe, others again can do entirely without it. Some can live on vege« table food, others, again must be supplied with animal food. All [ germs require water. The difference between germs as living poison, and mere mechanical poison, is that the latter is destroyed and rendered harmless by dilution, whereas the former is not. Germs are supposed to destroy life by ' their power of manufacturing a certain poison. Antiseptics kill germs, but they die hard, and when they have gcod hold, the poison needed to kill them succeeds in killing the patient also. The wisest plan is stated to be, to kill as many as we can of the deadly ones outside of us, by adopting due sanitary precautions. There are no germs in clean, healthy people, and such can safely breathe them, knowing that if they enter his body it is death to them, not to him. But whenever there is death, as in decay* ing teeth, or dirt, or disease, germs swarm. One "tip" is said to be never to approach possible infection with an empty stomach, but always after a meal, and to keep in extra good health and extra cleanliness when the enemy is on the war path. Diphtheria is to be prevented by avoiding all possible contagion, and the strictest isolation of known cases, and by keeping the mouth and throat guarded by antisceptic lotions and gargles, and by robust health.