A Civic Biology Part 16

Canning.--Canning is simply a method by which first the bacteria in a substance are killed by heating and then the substance is put into vessels into which no more bacteria may gain entrance. This is usually done at home by boiling the fruit or vegetable to be canned either in salt and water or with sugar and water, either of which substances aids in preventing the growth of bacteria. The time of boiling will be long or short, depending upon the materials to be canned. Some vegetables, as peas, beans, and corn, are very difficult to can, probably because of spores of bacteria which may be attached to them. Fruits, on the other hand, are usually much easier to preserve. After boiling for the proper time, the food, now free from all bacteria, must be put into jars or cans that are themselves absolutely _sterile_ or free from germs. This is done by first boiling the jars, then pouring the boiling hot material into the hot jars and sealing them so as to prevent the entrance of bacteria later.

Uses of Canning.--Canning as an industry is of immense importance to mankind. Not only does it provide him with fruits and vegetables at times when he could not otherwise get them, but it also cheapens the cost of such things. It prevents the waste of nature's products at a time when she is most lavish with them, enabling man to store them and utilize them later.

Canning has completely changed the life of the sailor and the soldier, who in former times used to suffer from various diseases caused by lack of a proper balance of food.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pasteurizing milk. Why should this be done?]

Pasteurization.--Milk is one of the most important food supplies of a great city. It is also one of the most difficult supplies to get in good condition. This is in part due to the fact that milk is produced at long distances from the city and must be brought first from farms to the railroads, then shipped by train, again taken to the milk supply depot by wagon, there bottled, and again shipped by delivery wagons to the consumers. When we remember that much of the milk used in New York City is forty-eight hours old and when we realize that bacteria grow _very_ rapidly in milk, we see the need of finding some way to protect the supply so as to make it safe, particularly for babies and young children.

This is done by _pasteurization_, a method named after the French bacteriologist Louis Pasteur. To pasteurize milk we heat it to a temperature of not over 170 Fahrenheit for from ten minutes to half an hour. By such a process all harmful germs will be killed and the keeping qualities of the milk greatly lengthened. Most large milk companies pasteurize their city supply by a rapid pasteurization at a much higher temperature, but this method slightly changes the flavor of the milk.

Cold Storage.--Man has also come to use cold to keep bacteria from growing in foods. The ice box at home and cold storage on a larger scale enables one to keep foods for a more or less lengthy period. If food is frozen, as in cold storage, it might keep without growth of bacteria for years. But fruits and vegetables cannot be frozen without spoiling their flavor. And all foods after freezing seem particularly susceptible to the bacteria of decay. For that reason products taken from cold storage must be used at once.

Ptomaines.--Many foods get their flavor from the growth of molds or bacteria in them. Cheese, b.u.t.ter, the gamey taste of certain meats, the flavor of sauerkraut, are all due to the work of bacteria. But if bacteria are allowed to grow so as to become very numerous, the ptomaines which result from their growth in foods may poison the person eating such foods.

Frequently ptomaine poisoning occurs in the summer time because of the rapid growth of bacteria. Much of the indigestion and diarrhoea which attack people during the summer is doubtless due to this kind of poisoning.

Preservatives.[21]--This leads us to ask if we may not preserve food in ways other than those mentioned so as to protect ourselves from danger of ptomaine poisoning. Many substances check the development of bacteria and in this way they _preserve_ the food. Preservatives are of two kinds, those harmless to man and those that are poisonous. Of the former, salt and sugar are examples; of the latter, formaldehyde and possibly benzoic acid.

Footnote 21: Perform experiment here to determine the value of different preservatives. Use sugar, salt, vinegar, boracic acid, benzoic acid, formaldehyde, and alcohol.

Sugar.--We have noted the use of sugar in canning. Small amounts of sugar will be readily attacked by yeasts, molds, and bacteria, but a 40 to 50 per cent solution will effectually keep out bacteria. Preserves are fruits boiled in about their own weight of sugar. Condensed milk is preserved by the sugar added to it; so are candied and, in part, dried fruits.

Salt.--Salt has been used for centuries to keep foods. Meats are smoked, dried, and salted; some are put down in strong salt solutions. Fish, especially cod and herring, are dried and salted. The keeping of b.u.t.ter is also due to the salt mixed with it. Vinegar is another preservative. It, like salt, changes the flavor of materials kept in it and so cannot come into wide use. Spices are also used as preservatives.

Harmful Preservatives.--Certain chemicals and drugs, used as preservatives, seem to be on the border line of harmfulness. Such are benzoic acid, borax, or boracic acid. Such drugs _may_ be harmless in small quant.i.ties, but unfortunately in canned goods we do not always know the amount used. The national government in 1906 pa.s.sed what is known as the Pure Food Law, which makes it illegal to use any of these preservatives (excepting benzoic acid in very small amounts). Food which contains this preservative will be so labeled and should not be given to children or people with weak digestion. Unfortunately people do not always read the labels and thus the pure food law is ineffective in its working. Infrequently formaldehyde or other preservatives are used in milk. Such treatment renders milk unfit for ordinary use and is an illegal process.

Disinfectants.[22]--Frequently it becomes necessary to destroy bacteria which cause diseases of various kinds. This process is called _disinfecting_. The substances commonly used are carbolic acid, formalin or formaldehyde, lysol, and bichloride of mercury. Of these, the last named is the most powerful as well as the most dangerous to use. As it attacks metal, it should not be used in a metal pail or dish. It is commonly put up in tablets which are mixed to form a 1 to 1000 solution. Such tablets should be carefully safeguarded because of possible accidental poisoning.

Footnote 22: Experiment to determine the most effective disinfectants. Use tubes of bouillon containing different strength solutions of formaldehyde, lysol, iodine, carbolic acid, and bichloride of mercury. Results. Conclusions.

Formaldehyde used in liquid form is an excellent disinfectant. When burned in a formalin candle, it sets free an intensely pungent gas which is often used for disinfecting sick rooms after the patient has been removed.

Carbolic acid is perhaps the best disinfectant of all. If used in a solution of about 1 part to 25 of water, it will not burn the skin. It is of particular value to disinfect skin wounds, as it heals as well as cleanses when used in a weak solution. Its rather pleasant odor makes it useful to cover up unpleasant smells of the sick room.

The fumes of burning sulphur, which are so often used for disinfecting, are of little real value.

[Ill.u.s.tration: This shows how organic matter is broken down by bacteria so it may be used again by green plants.]

Bacteria cause Decay.--Let us next see in what ways the bacteria directly influence man upon the earth. Have you ever stopped to consider what life would be like on the earth if things did not decay? The sea would soon be filled and the land covered with dead bodies of plants and animals.

Conditions of life would become impossible and living things on the earth would cease to exist.

Fortunately, bacteria cause decay. All organic matter, in whatever form, is sooner or later decomposed by the action of untold millions of bacteria which live in the air, water, and soil. These soil bacteria are most numerous in rich damp soils containing large amounts of organic material.

They are very numerous around and in the dead bodies of plants and animals.

To a considerable degree, then, these bacteria are useful in feeding upon these dead bodies, which otherwise would soon cover the surface of the earth to the exclusion of everything else. Bacteria may thus be scavengers.

They oxidize organic materials, changing them to compounds that can be absorbed by plants and used in building protoplasm. Without bacteria and fungi it would be impossible for life to exist on the earth, for green plants would be unable to get the raw food materials in forms that could be used in making food and living matter. In this respect bacteria are of the greatest service to mankind.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Microscopic appearance of ordinary milk, showing fat globules and bacteria which cause the souring of milk.]

Relation to Fermentation.--They may incidentally, as a result of this process of decay, continue the process of fermentation begun by the yeasts.

In making vinegar the yeasts first make alcohol (see page 135) which the bacteria change to acetic acid. The lactic acid bacteria, which sour milk, changing the milk sugar to an acid, grow very rapidly in a warm temperature; hence milk which is cooled immediately and kept cool or which is pasteurized and kept in a cool place will not sour readily. Why? These same lactic acid bacteria may be useful when they sour the milk for the cheese maker.

Other Useful Bacteria.--Certain bacteria give flavor to cheese and b.u.t.ter, while still other bacteria aid in the "curing" of tobacco, in the production of the dye indigo, in the preparation of certain fibers of plants for the market, as hemp, flax, etc., in the rotting of animal matter from the skeletons of sponges, and in the process of tanning hides to make leather.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A field of alfalfa, a plant which harbors the nitrogen-fixing bacteria.]

Nitrogen-fixing Bacteria.--Still other bacteria, as we have seen before, "change over" nitrogen in organic material in the soil and even the free nitrogen of the air so that it can be used by plants in the form of a compound of nitrogen. The bacteria living in tubercles on the roots of clover, beans, peas, etc., have the power of thus "fixing" the free nitrogen in the air found between particles of soil. This fact is made use of by farmers who rotate their crops, growing first a crop of clover or other plants having root tubercles, which produce the bacteria, then plowing these in and planting another crop, as wheat or corn, on the same area. The latter plants, making use of the nitrogen compounds there, produce a larger crop than when grown in ground containing less nitrogenous material.

Bacteria cause Disease.--The most harmful bacteria are those which cause diseases of plants and animals. Certain diseases of plants--blights, rots, and wilts--are of bacterial nature. These do much annual damage to fruits and other parts of growing plants useful to man as food. But by far the most important are the bacteria which cause disease in man. They accomplish this by becoming parasites in the human body. Millions upon millions of bacteria exist in the human body at all times--in the mouth, on the teeth, in the blood, and especially in the lower part of the food tube. Some in the food tube are believed to be useful, some harmless, and some harmful; others in the mouth cause decay of the teeth, while a few kinds, if present in the body, may cause disease.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tubercles on the roots of the soy bean. They contain the nitrogen-fixing bacteria. (Fletcher's Soils.) Copyright by Doubleday, Page and Company.]

It is known that bacteria, like other living things, feed and give off organic waste from _their own_ bodies. This waste, called a _toxin_, is poison to the host on which the bacteria live, and it is usually the production of this toxin that causes the symptoms of disease. Some forms, however, break down tissues and plug up the small blood vessels, thus causing disease.

Diseases caused by Bacteria.--It is estimated that bacteria cause annually over 50 per cent of the deaths of the human race. As we will later see, a very large proportion of these diseases might be prevented if people were educated sufficiently to take the proper precautions to prevent their spread. These precautions might save the lives of some 3,000,000 of people yearly in Europe and America. Tuberculosis, typhoid fever, diphtheria, pneumonia, blood poisoning, syphilis, and a score of other germ diseases ought not to exist. A good deal more than half of the present misery of this world might be prevented and this earth made cleaner and better by the cooperation of the young people now growing up to be our future home makers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A single cell sc.r.a.ped from the roof of the mouth and highly magnified. The little dots are bacteria, most of which are harmless. Notice the comparative size of bacteria and cell.]

How we take Germ Diseases.--Germ or contagious diseases either enter the body by way of the mouth, nose, or other body openings, or through a break in the skin. They may be carried by means of air, food, or water, but are usually _transmitted directly_ from the person who has the disease to a well person. This may be done through personal contact or by handling articles used by the sick person or by drinking or eating foods which have received some of the germs. From this it follows that if we know the methods by which a given disease is communicated, we may protect ourselves from it and aid the civic authorities in preventing its spread.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Deaths from tuberculosis compared with other contagious diseases in the city of New York in 1908.]

Tuberculosis.--The one disease responsible for the greatest number of deaths--perhaps one seventh of the total on the globe--is tuberculosis. It is estimated that of all people alive in the United States to-day, 5,000,000 will die of this disease. But this disease is slowly but surely being overcome. It is believed that within perhaps one hundred years, with the aid of good laws and sanitary living, it will be almost extinct.

[Ill.u.s.tration: This curve shows a decreasing death rate from tuberculosis.

Explain.]

Tuberculosis is caused by the growth of bacteria, called the _tubercle bacilli_, within the lungs or other tissues of the human body. Here they form little tubers full of germs, which close up the delicate air pa.s.sages in the lungs, while in other tissues they give rise to hip-joint disease, scrofula, lupus, and other diseases, depending on the part of the body they attack. Tuberculosis may be contracted by taking the bacteria into the throat or lungs or possibly by eating meat or drinking milk from tubercular cattle. Especially is it communicated from a consumptive to a well person by kissing, by drinking or eating from the same cup or plate, using the same towels, or in coming in direct contact with the person having the germs in his body. Although there are always some of the germs in the air of an ordinary city street, and though we may take some of these germs into our bodies at any time, yet the bacteria seem able to gain a foothold only under certain conditions. It is only when the tissues are in a worn-out condition, when we are "run down," as we say, that the parasite may obtain a foothold in the lungs. Even if the disease gets a foothold, it is quite possible to cure it if it is taken in time. The germ of tuberculosis is killed by exposure to bright sunlight and fresh air. Thus the course of the disease may be arrested, and a permanent cure brought about, by a life in the open air, the patient sleeping out of doors, taking plenty of nourishing food and very little exercise. See also Chapter XXIV.

[Ill.u.s.tration: This figure shows how sewage from a cesspool (_c_) might get into the water supply: _lm_, layer of rock; _w_, wash water.]

Typhoid Fever.--One of the most common germ diseases in this country and Europe is typhoid fever. This is a disease which is conveyed by means of water and food, especially milk, oysters, and uncooked vegetables. Typhoid fever germs live in the intestine and from there get into the blood and are carried to all parts of the body. A poison which they give off causes the fever so characteristic of the disease. The germs multiply very rapidly in the intestine and are pa.s.sed off from the body with the excreta from the food tube. If these germs get into the water supply of a town, an epidemic of typhoid will result. Among the recent epidemics caused by the use of water containing typhoid germs have been those in Butler, Pa., where 1364 persons were made ill; Ithaca, N. Y., with 1350 cases; and Watertown, N.

Y., where over 5000 cases occurred. Another source of infection is milk.

Frequently epidemics have occurred which were confined to users of milk from a certain dairy. Upon investigation it was found that a case of typhoid had occurred on the farm where the milk came from, that the germs had washed into the well, and that this water was used to wash the milk cans. Once in the milk, the bacteria multiplied rapidly, so that the milkman gave out cultures of typhoid in his milk bottles. Proper safeguarding of our water and milk supply is necessary if we are to keep typhoid away.

Blood Poisoning.--The bacterium causing blood poisoning is another toxin-forming germ. It lives in dust and dirt and is often found on the skin. It enters the body through cuts or bruises. It seems to thrive best in less oxygen than is found in the air. It is therefore important not to close up with court-plaster wounds which such germs may have entered. It, with typhoid, is responsible for four times as many deaths as bullets and sh.e.l.ls in time of battle. The wonderfully small death rate of the j.a.panese army in their war with Russia was due to the fact that the j.a.panese soldiers always boiled their drinking water before using it, and their surgeons always dressed all wounds on the battlefield, using powerful antiseptics in order to kill any bacteria that might have lodged in the exposed wounds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: This figure shows how a milk route might be instrumental in spreading diphtheria. _X_ is a farm on which a case of diphtheria occurred that was responsible for all the cases along milk routes _A_ and _F_ in Hyde Park, Dorchester, and Milton. How would you explain this?]

Other Diseases.--Many other diseases have been traced to bacteria.

Diphtheria is one of the best known. As it is a throat disease, it may easily be conveyed from one person to another by kissing, putting into the mouth objects which have come in contact with the mouth of the patient, or by food into which the germs have been carried. Another disease which probably causes more misery in the world than any other germ disease is syphilis. Hundreds of thousands of new-born babies die annually or grow up handicapped by deformities from this dread scourge. Syphilis and gonorrhea, both diseases of the same sort and contracted in the same manner, hand down to innocent wives and still more innocent children a heritage of disease "even unto the third and fourth generation." Grippe, pneumonia, whooping cough, and colds are believed to be caused by bacteria. Other diseases, as malaria, yellow fever, sleeping sickness, and probably smallpox, scarlet fever, and measles, are due to the attack of one-celled animal parasites.

Of these we shall learn later in Chapter XV.

Immunity.--It has been found that after an attack of a germ disease the body will not soon be again attacked by the same disease. This immunity, of which we will learn more later, seems to be due to a manufacture in the blood of substances which fight the bacteria or their poisons. If a person keeps his body in good physical condition and lives carefully, he will do much toward acquiring this natural immunity.

Acquired Immunity.--Modern medicine has discovered means of protecting the body from some contagious diseases. Vaccination as protection against smallpox, the use of ant.i.toxins (of which more later) against diphtheria, and inoculation against typhoid are all ways in which we may be protected against diseases.

Methods of fighting Germ Diseases.--As we have seen, diseases produced by bacteria may be caused by the bacteria being _directly_ transferred from one person to another, or the disease may obtain a foothold in the body from food, water, or by taking them into the blood through a cut or a wound or a body opening.

It is evident that as individuals we may each do something to prevent the spread of germ diseases, especially in our homes. We may keep our bodies, especially our hands and faces, clean. Sweeping and dusting may be done with damp cloths so as not to raise a dust; our milk and water, when from a suspicious supply, may be _sterilized_ or pasteurized. Wounds through which bacteria might obtain foothold in the body should be washed with some _antiseptic_ such as carbolic acid (1 part to 25 water), which kills the germs. In a later chapter we shall learn more of how we may cooperate with the authorities to combat disease and make our city or town a better place in which to live.[23]