THE MICROBES HOUR.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13661, 1 August 1908, Page 7

THE MICROBES HOUR.

' T>™f AtJuel the celebrated scientist of nine 'o'clock in the morning and at pine oTock at night than any" other period* of £ day. He has also discovered that 1 percentage of microbes in the atnjosrThere is less at three o'clock in the inoraLg and .X three o'clock in the afternoon than at other times. The announcements by Dr. .Miguel fol-. lowed a long series of teste of the atmosphere under varying conditions and m many parts of Europe. He took sample* of the air, both indoors and out of doors,, and subjected them to. a most careful microscopic inspection, and to other tests which enabled him to determine with a fair degree of accuracy the number ot microbes present in each cubic inch of atmosphere examined. ' The explanation advanced for the partiality of the microbe for nine o'clock a.m. and p.m. is that the " microbe hour " is controlled by the movement of people. l?rom five to nine in the morning they are going'from their homes to their work-ing-places, and from .five to nine in the evening they are again journeying through the streets, either homeward ■ bound or in search of pleasure. That, however, is only a theory, and it may not be correct. Dr Miguel hae not accepted it as final, and believes that further research will reveal another and still more interesting reason for the-tre-mendous rush of microbes earthward twice every day with the regularity of clockwork. He noticed that at or about six o'clock every morning and evening there were indications of the approach of the microbe msh hour. From that time on •until nine o'clock the atmosphere became more and more crowded! with germs of all kinds, some bad, some good, and then immediately after nine 'o'clock the tide began to ebb, until it was always lowest at 3 o'clock.