New Britain Herald Newspaper, May 12, 1919, Page 14

The plancts and fixed stars are scarcely more remote from our grasp than are the infinitesi- mally tiny worlds which gre spread out beneath the microscope By Lrving R. Bacon FTER killing oft a larger part of humanity in a year than the world war in all its four years of battles. the influenza bacillus has at last been captured. This is the welcome news that has just come from London. With the bacillus in captivity, medl- cal science will now find it compara- tively easy to discover ways and means of putting an end to the havoe which this active little vegetable imp has been playing with human lives in every corner of the earth. The discovery of a bacillus is not interesting a whit less romantically than the discovery of a planet. Both are so far out of our reach that their presence is usually felt long before their known. Thus it was years before the planet existence is actually Neptune was discovered, although its influence upon other members of the solar system had satisfied astrono- mers beyond a shadow of a doubt that there must be some such disturb- ing body lurking somewhere beyond our ken. Two Million in a Drop Nor does the analogy between the discoveries made by the telescope and In the former, it is the immense magnitude of the objects which they disclose; in the microscope, the microscope end there. it is their amaz ing minuteness which elicits our won- And in regard to distances, it be said that the planets and, in striking manner, the flxed stars, are scarcely more remote from our grasp than are the infinitesimally tiny worlds which are spread out be- neath the lens of the microscope. der, may a more In view of the fact that the nearest the Alpha Cen- tauri, is forty-eight trillion miles from of the fixed stars, us, and requires eight years for its light, traveling at the rate of 186,000 miles a second, to reach us, the state- ment that the microscopic world is no less remote from us may seem like another of those paradoxes which are more sensational than true. But, let see!, The us word bacillus is a little rod. The Greek word bacterion signifies the same thing. The tiny bodies were thus named because those which were first discovered in 1683 were shaped like rods. Since then many other species of them have been discovered, having entirely dif- ferent shapes, some being spiral, others round and still others oval. Yet, because the name first given them had acquired currency the world over, sci- entists have retained the original ap- pellation, irrespective of their appear- ance. A rod-shaped bacillus is provideda with a whiplike appendage by lashing which it propels itself through liquids —through blood, for instance. Small as is a drop of blood, 1500 of the rod-shaped bacilli can bestow themselves quite comfortably end to end across the diameter of that drop. At that rate about 2,000,000 of them could be accommodated within the blood drop. Latin and means Size of a Molecule it is cousidered that each one microscopic beings has a com- organization; eats, digests and and that each of the organs with which it performs these func- tions of life has a complete organiza- tion of its own, there is a great deal of point to the saying of D Swift. who died in 1745, that The littl Upon Ana so plete respires, fleas have lesser fleas their backs to bite ‘em: 1gain have lesser ones. ad infinitum. a bacillus, it is of im- compared to a molecule, for a long time, was considered mallest compound substance xistence. An idea of the size of a nolecule may be formed by consid & the following words of Lord Ray- oh, in the Philosopiical Magazine, , page 474, in 1880, speaking attraction in connection with molecules: “The extent of the cohesive force must be limited to about the two hun- dred and fifty milliontb of an inch %1% 28 5 e The electron bears the same relatiop to an atom of hydrogen * head to the dome of St. Paul’s athedral,” or, in effect, to the top of “the Woolworth Building * * * and, within similar limits of un- certainty * * * it appears tolerably safe to conclude that * * * the diame- ter or distance of the particles (mole: cules) of water is between the two- thousand and ten thousand millionth of an inch.” A molecule of water is made up ot two parts of hydrogen and one part oxygen. Each of these parts is called an atom. An atom, therefore, must be at least one-third smaller than the molecule. But this is not all. We have by no means reached the end of the series in the descending scale of mag- nitudes. In 1874 Dr. G. Johnstone Stone covered that atoms were by no means the ultimate units of matter. He found that they were made up of electrical constituents and, in 1891, he had de- veloped his theory sufficlently to be able to announce that these consti ents of atoms were partly negatively charged units to which he gave the name “electrons,” and partly posi- tively charged ones, which, however, have not yet been identified with any thing known to science. The most that can be said by scientists concerning the positive units of electricity in an atom, is that “it must be there, as the atom is in a neutral condition, and could not be so if the ecle (the atively charged unit) wer constituent.” ron ne An electron bea to an atom of hydi the Encyclopedia pin’s head to the Cathedral” And now cc part of the af in the atom its own and around a central point, in ctly the same manner as the plan- around the sun. So that each atom a sort of bubble, constituting a firmament, within which exists 2 tire world At this po! least provision that beyond I go. It is the entific r arc cordin Britannica, *“ dome of St. Paul's wonderful tron with ience forsakes for we are . told > tron we cannot Ultima, Thule” of . so far as the present of science is concerned, r it will be able to extend its researches still further through iater discover s hypothetical and. per haps, questionable But fortunatel find auother guide at this stage of the inquiry, which at th point has become more interesting than at any of the pre- ceding stag Philosophy now takes up the Ariadne thread and gives us at we ‘orst Enemies—Germs That Seek THE CANCER a Frer from new gr which is GERM surgcon. isolate hs this micrococcus, “lieved to be the specific cause of cancer Doye least som the clue toward the solution of mysterious foree which puts the elc onin revolution its cen- tral sun in the atom The electrons are represented as re volving with incredible speed; so much 0, according to the scientists, that they und their central suns millic of times in an inconceivably small fraction of a second. Yet it is only owing to their extreme smaliness that this furious rate of speed appear to be greater than we can conceive of in connection with any other material thing. In reality it does not exceed the rate at which we know light to (ravel, namely 136,000 mil second, which goes to prove that both time and space are purely relative affair: and that, if an atom could be enlarged until it assumed the size of the firm such as we the etectron it would have grown to be as ment SR within approxint entral pc electren to the proportic revolves would have swollen s of our sun not at all prepos- that since it is only r mind that the elec- 1 e may be same ly appeur to be earth be cov- the same Wi 1 flora and be 1 cther iro or, te, peopled with a happy whom s ortune. therefor to suppos ely to © and wars and ibles; more fortur race of creatures to poverty, famine, m: and death are unknown lness, ancor The Microscopic World Just as we 10t abie what ing on in the outer worl which stud our firmament and can only guess that some of them are in- wabited, so, too, is there as great a barrier bet:yveen micro- scopic worlds which, when we consider the relativity of space, are no less dis- tant from us than Alpha Centauri and ius and the millions of other stars coursing through the heavens trillions and quadrillions of miles away. Another corollary of the relativity of space is that the assumption of modern science regarding the divisi- bility of matter may, after all, be wrong. To understand this it may be to discover us and th THE TYPHOID GERM This is the micro-organism pre- dominant in the Llood when ty- phoid fever lays siege to the life of the body well to go a bit into the history oi this before the two Greek philosophe doctrines concerning 1a of them, Democritus, mail ied that matter consists of ver mall particl atoms, w name indicates, cannot divided into anything smaller, and that these are, therefore, the ultimate constituents of everything in the world, and as such are eternal, Some Ancient Philosophies The other philosopher, Anaxagoras. taught that even the smalil particles of matter, whether called atoms or by any other name, are stil! divisible, and that this divisibility is endless. Among nm“n'ufs Epicurus foliowed and devel- oped the theory of Democritus; while Aristotle embraced that of Anaxag- oras. Lucretius, the greatest pniloso- pher of the Romans, in a wonderful poem, which is one of the masterpieces of the literature of all times, advocated the atomic theory as propounded by picurus, and, indeed, adopted the lat- ter's philosophy in toto. In modern times the doctrine of Democritus and Epicurus was revived in the seven teenth century by Robert Boyle and Sir Isaac Newton, and has been gain ing ground among scientists more and more, until at the present time scarce- ly a voice is ever sed among scien- tists in defense of the doctrine of the infinite divisibility of matter. The voices tha are raised in defense of this theory are those of philoso- phers, foremost among them being Schopenhauer. As he died in 1860, thirty-one years before Doctor Stoney, Introducing the streptococcus from <carlatina, the germ that preys par- ticularly upon litile children discovered the existence of electrons. h rguments were directed against atoms were at that time con- which sidercd the ultimate particles of mat- ter. Novertheless, what he atoms applies and, if science said about equally should to electrons; discover still more primitive constituents of matter than the ele trons, Schopenhauer's arguments would not be a whit less applicable to them either. For, after all, whep scientists believed the mole- cule to be the final point of divisibility, of matter, they found that they were wrong, and that this pre-eminence be. longed to the atom. Ang, later, they were compelled to admit that even the atom is a compounded mass, and that the electron should be enthroned as the ultimate parent of whatever of a materiai nature exists. “The Middle Ages showed whither thinking without experimentation leads; modern times show, conversely, whither experimentation thinking leads, without id this philosopher. What he objected to was that the atomic theory necessarily leads to the crass jnaterialistic tendency to reduce everything in the world to a mechan- ical or at explanation of the world. He showed the futility of thus try- ing to dethrone the more philosophic theory of the existence of a meta- best chemical or electrical physical something which could be reached neither by the scalpel of the CATARRH AND TONSILLITIS Prevalent when you have severe cold in the head, with ulcerative pharyngitis and chronic nasal dis orders PLEURISY AND PERITONITIS The staphylococcus here shown is held to the cause of various malignant inflammatory processes physiologist nor by the retort of the chemist, nor by the microscope nor by any other purely scientific means no matter how ingeniously contrived. Assuming, he says, that we actually do at last reach some ultimate par- ticle or element which we find in some way to reside in and to be the con stituent of every other object in the world, will that explain what that is which gives that so-called ultimate element its power to act? WIIl not that power to act be just as inexplio able then as it was before? And, although the electron has come since his time to assume the position of the ultimate element under- lying every object of which we have any knowledge, his question has not lost its force, What, after all, is it that imparts to the electron its mar- velous activity, which sends it revoly- ing around that other even mors mysterious central point of the atom? Close to the Metaphysical The answer to this query constitutes the entire philosophy of Schopen- hauer, which, as he says, is one thought viewed from various points, This fundamental thought which he develops so fruittully is, in brief, that the same force which we recognize in our own selves as our will is the very same force which imparts caus- ality to every part of nature, whether organic or inorganic? In us and other animals the will is accompanied by an intellect, which serves to submit to it the motives which actuate its de cisions; in vegetable and inorgania substances, the will operates without the guidance of a brain intellect, and is actuated by stimull in the case of vegetables and of causes, strictly so-called, in the case of inorganio objects. His philosophy a'ms at proving this will to be something alto- gether metaphysical, although it is the basis of everything within the physical ‘The germ is =0 far out of ow reach that its presence ususlly is felt long before its existence actually is known