ABOUT BACTERIA.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18084, 5 June 1923, Page 6

ABOUT BACTERIA.

As a class bacteria probably form a community with the greatest reputation for evil, and probably they deserve it least. They are blamed for almost every form of disease, and yet, as among ourselves, the useful members outnumber the criminal by many thousands to one. So olosely in appearance do the good bacteria resemble the wicked ones that often it is impossible to distinguish one from the other. They are all very low forms of plant life and work by generating complex “enzymes” which bring about chemical changes. Scientists consider bacteria to be as necessary to human life as air and water! Nature has no greater scavengers, for they transform dead bodies and plants by the process popularly known as “decay” into suitable foods for living plants. They are coming more and more into prominence in industrial processes and the expert bacteriologist finds an increasing demand for his services.

We rely upon bacteria for our beer, trie modem brewer tending them with motherly care from birth onwards, anxiously guarding them from infection by undesirable parasites. To these tiny organisms also certain famous wines and liqueurs owe their celebrated flavour, which can bo attained only in definite localities because conditions there favour the -growth of the right kind of bacteria. Vessels in us© for hundreds, of year’s have become inoculated with them and any change to new vessels would hopelessly ruin the flavour._ We are also indebted to bacteria for the flavour of dairy products. Milk is an ideal medium for their growth, and butter and oheese please the palate much more if the. right kind are present during their formation. Many important foodstuffs would absolutely refuse to grow if their special attendant bacteria wei’e not present. Vinegar is manufactured with their aid, and during the war they did their hit in produoing acetone for explosives by a newly-discovered process.