The World of the Germ

The little tiny creatures that the human eye cannot see are called germs. These germs have helped many people get well. There are also tiny germs that have harmed many more people.

Two centuries ago, nobody knew that these little germs existed. It wasn’t until Anton Van Leeuwenhoek looked though the lens of the first microscope in 1668 to discover that these small creatures were moving on the small glass slide. They had tails and lots of little legs. This discovery was so exciting! These tiny germs were alive! So he called them “Animalcules.”

In 1735, a man named Carolus Linnaeus was a famous doctor as well as a science professor. He put these tiny creatures into his classification system as a real species. As for the germ, it is basic science still being used today.

In 1796 Edward Jenner came out with the vaccine for the smallpox. However, by this time people had became so scared of dangerous diseases that caused sickness and death of their love ones, they did not believe in any doctors.

During the 1850’s the old country doctor, Henry Adams, sent away for a new microscope. He was so excited that he then went out to get his hands on all kinds of stuff to see for himself where all these germs live. Hair, skin, dust, blood, even spit! He would even take pinches of his wife Martha’s homemade bread dough that she was about to bake that morning. In his medical experience he had not seen anything like it before. To his astonishment, these tiny germs were everywhere. Along with other medical doctors, Henry Adams agreed that good hygiene is the healthiest way to get rid of germs. But, baths can only keep germs at bay for a little while.

This method of good hygiene still does not prevent every child from getting sick from childhood diseases. Measles and mumps wiped out a whole school in the early 1950’s, all in one week in a small town in Massachusetts.

The germ itself wasn’t thought of as healthy until many years later. Modern research has been done on different vaccines preventing many harmful diseases caused by germs. This proves that people can live a lot healthier these days than in the past.

Marguerite J. Badger.

Oct 24, 2005