Unclean sewers, filthy hovels,
unswept streets, unwashed clothes, are therefore breeders of
animalcules, many of which are perfectly visible without
microscopic aid.
Now, if some are discernible by the naked eye, and others are
detected in such varying sizes that some can only just be
distinguished by the most powerful lens, is it not rational to
conclude that the smallest discernible to human intelligence is
but the medium of a countless race? that millions of others still
exist, which are too minute for any observation?
Observe the particular quarters of a city which suffers most
severely during the prevalence of an epidemic, In all dirty,
narrow streets, where the inhabitants are naturally of a low and
uncleanly class, the cases will be tenfold. Thus, filth is
admitted to have at least the power of attracting disease, and we
know that it not only attracts, but generates animalcules;
therefore filth, insects and disease are ever to he seen closely
linked together.
Now, the common preventives against infection are such as are
peculiarly inimical to every kind of insect; camphor, chloride of
lime, tobacco-smoke, and powerful scents and smokes of any kind.
The first impulse on the appearance of an infectious disease is
to purify everything as much as possible, and by extra
cleanliness and fumigations to endeavor to arrest its progress.
The great purifier of Nature is a violent wind, which usually
terminates an epidemic immediately; this would naturally carry
before it all insect life with which the atmosphere might be
impregnated, and the disease disappears at the same moment. It
will he well remembered that the plague of locusts inflicted upon
Pharaoh was relieved in the same manner: "And the Lord turned a
mighty strong west wind, which took away the locusts and cast
them into the Red Sea; there remained not one locust in all the
coasts of Egypt."
Every person is aware that unwholesome air is quite poisonous to
the human system as impure water; and seeing that the noxious
qualities of the latter are caused by animalcules, and that the
method used for purifying infected air are those most generally
destructive to insect life, it is not irrational to conclude that
the poisonous qualities of bad water and bad air arise from the
same cause.
Man is being constantly preyed upon by insects; and were it not
for ordinary cleanliness, he would become a mass of vermin; even
this does not protect him from the rapacity of ticks, mosquitoes,
fleas and many others. Intestinal worms feed on him within, and,
unseen, use their slow efforts for his destruction.
The knowledge of so many classes which actually prey upon the
human system naturally leads to the belief that many others
endowed with the same propensities exist, of which we have at
present no conception.
