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and molecules from 1-5,000th to 1-10,000th of
an inch in diameter. These minute cells are easily
distributed through water and through the air. They
may thus be taken into the human body, and set up
in the body into which they enter, the same sort of
disease as exist in the body from which they come
These poisons have a vitality of their own, and
are capable of growing and multiplying out of the
body in which they were first generated. Thus it
is that the excretions from the bowels of a single
person having contagious Cholera are capable of
infecting large masses of water, and engendering
disease in those who drink it. It is not improbable
that all the organic poisons have the same power of
increase in the air on damp substances or other
proper soils. In this respect they resemble the
spores of mushrooms and toad-stools which being
diffused through the air alight upon some soil
adapted to their growth, where they spring up and
multiply, the spores which are diffused again for
further multiplication. The atmosphere of all overcrowded
and unventilated rooms where persons are
ill with Zymotic Disease is crowded with these
germs ready to alight on persons and things presenting
a proper soil for their growth.
It is in this way that the germs of organic poisons
differ from mineral poisons. A crystal of arsenic
or corrosive sublimate does not grow and multiply
either outside or inside the body. In the same way
vegetable poisons as morphia and strychnine cease
to multiply at once they are removed from the