GERM or MICROBE, a term applied to any microscopical form of life, plant or ani mal, any individual micro-organism that has been found to have a life history. Vegetable germs are recognized as the causes of fermen tation and putrefaction. They are nature's scavengers. At one time in the given theory of disease most of the communicable or infectious diseases were thought to be spread by microbes or germs of animal origin, but the study of these diseases in recent years show that both lowly organized plants and animals may be the sources of infection. Diseases caused in this way are known as germ diseases. It is known that malaria, for example, is caused by parasitic germs brought into the blood by mosquitoes, and typhus fever by body lice, while typhoid fever, acute pneumonia, infantile paralysis, or poliomyelitis, and tuberculosis for example are caused by microscopical vegetable growth, known as bacteria. The microscopic plant in itself the seed or_power of reproducing a plant of like kind. As Tyndall puts it oas surely as a thistle rises from a thistle seed, as surely as the fig comes from the fig, the grape from the grape, the thorn from the thorn, so surely does the typhoid germ (or seed) increase and multiply into typhoid fever, the scarlatina' germ into scarlatina and the small-pox germ into small-pox." While the infecting germ of measles and of some other communicable dis= eases has not yet been isolated and studied, progress is being made toward their discovery. Plants as well as man and other animals. have diseases, and probably there is no living ani mal or plant that does not have to struggle difectly or indirectly with either plant or ani mal germs. Fortunately while ordinary at
mospheric air frequently contains many germs, they are content usually. to live on dead plants and animals — and even so-called disease germs may be harmless to human beings in a good condition of general health. But when an individual has a depressed vitality, there is a' suitable soil for the development and propaga tion of disease germs. They now live on live tissues. It is estimated that in suitable soil one bacterium in 24 hours will have 17,003,000 descendants. Germs enter the body through the nose by inspired air, by the throat with air and infected food, and through abrasions and wounds of the skin. Excreted from the body they can convey infection to others. It is now recognized that germs of diphtheria, typhoid fever and infantile paralysis for example, find ing lodgement in the bodies of healthy persons, may through the excretions from these bodies produce infection for others. These persons are designated Dust is a great holder of certain disease germs, so are articles of food: and .clothing, bedding, carpets, any de composing material, etc. In the prevention and treatment of infectious or germ diseases, civic, house and personal cleanliness are of prime importance. See MICROBES; INFECTION ; DISEASE, GUM THEORY of PLANTS, DISEASES OF; PARASITES.; BACTERIA; PROTOZOA.