stain to see properly, even with
this wonderful microscope; that is our old friend the bacillus of
tuberculosis; but unless you see the patient first I do not believe you
could distinguish him from the leprosy bug.

"These are known germs, but look through the glass at this drop, and you
will see some bugs worth seeing, although the medical fraternity have
not as yet discovered their value. Perhaps you know that most
bacteriologists consider these germs to be plants, not bugs, although
they admit some of them move a little. How astonished they would be if
they could look through this glass! See that chap with green hind legs:
he preys on the typhoid germ, and when they discover this physicians
will simply inoculate the patient with a lot of these little chaps with
the green legs, and they will do the rest.

"Here is a germ with yellow stripes which looks a little like a
diminutive potato bug. He is the deadly enemy of the bug of consumption,
and will attack and kill him on every possible occasion. They are about
evenly matched, but I think the little striped chap is a bit the better.
Another ghost and myself made a match the other night,--seven battles,
the result to decide the championship,--a sort of a bugging main, as it
were. I won. The first six matches were even. We won three each, but in
the seventh my striped bug got the tubercular germ down and shook him as
a terrier does a rat. The other ghost and myself nearly had a fight to
get our eyes to the microscope. I tell you it was exciting. There is my
champion bug now, see him?--the one with the fourth hind leg gone."

"But how," I asked, "are you going to prevent people from dying of old
age?"

"Of course they will die of old age; but there is no such thing as old
age under one hundred and fifty years; what you call old age is not old
age at all. There are two kinds of old age or senility. Old age,
properly speaking, results from a distinct modification of the nervous
tissues and a hardening of the arteries--the former caused by unnatural
conditions, nervous strain and dissipation, and the latter from
over-feeding and drinking. The trouble with the ordinary man is that he
absorbs great quantities of nitrogenous foods instead of making his diet
one of nuts, fruit, milk, etc. In comparatively young men of the present
age there is often a decided modification of the nervous tissues with
symptoms resembling those in neurasthenia. In such cases galvanic
treatment