DISEASE GERMS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2324, 9 January 1890, Page 3

DISEASE GERMS

Disease germs are said to multiply -in two ways: by fissure or breakingoff, and by spores or egg-iike bodies. These latter have wonderful vital power. Those found for instance, in consumption, remain alive for months after being d^ed, and if moistened and inocula'ed will then produce the disease. Some germs must have air to breathe; others, again, can do entirely without it. Some can live on vegetable food; others, again, must be. supplied with animal or nitrogenous food Most can resist cold better than heat, which is very fatal, except to these hardy young spores. Boiling for half an hour kills all germs of any sort, and real drying and freezing kills all but spores. All germs require water. The difference b tween germs as living poison, and mere chemical poison, is that the latter is destroyed and rendered harmless by dilution, whereas the former is not. ri he germs are supposed to destroy life by their power of manufacturing a certain poison. There are no germs in clean healthy people, but wherever there is death, as in decaying teeth, or dirt, or disease, there they swarm. One attack from them, if recoTersd from, as a rule protects from future attacks, seemingly by exhausting the particular soil in the body on which the particular species can live. Exposure to the air greatly decreases the virulence of the more deadly germs. That which, for instance, produces fatal carbuncle was found to be harmless when exposed to the air for e'ght days, Inoculation with these enfeebled germs protects against the fresh ones of the same species.—" Leisure Hour."