THE LAST OF THE BACILLI.
(Feuilleton of the "Medical Record," April, 1900.)
In a gloomy and inaccessible cavity, situated in the diaphragm of the human body in which he had made his home, stood the last of the Bacilli. His friends and his brothers, the companions of his innocent childhood, the associates of his boyish days, his fellow-adventurers in manhood's prime—all, all had perished. Some had been ruthlessly hunted down by a skilled body of German assassins; others had died under the cruel attacks of the pestilent Frenchman. The Cholera Bacillus, the king of them all, was the first to fall; typhoid and typhus, small-pox and measles, fits of convulsions or of sneezing, coughs and catarrhs, had all been deprived of Bacilli and slain. The Wart Bacillus had fought hard and maintained himself for a long time on a precarious footing of fingers and thumbs; but he too had been extirpated. The Thirst Bacillus had given up the ghost yesterday, after keeping up for years a guerilla warfare disguised either as a green rat or a striped snake. And now the mighty Hunger Bacillus stood alone, gloomy and defiant. But he knew his hour had come. "Better death," he shouted, "than the microscope!" and with these words drew his sword and dashed forth into the darkness. There was a yell, followed by the sound of steel beaten against steel, then a blood-curdling gurgle, and all grew still.
"He was a gallant scoundrel, but my quick riposte confused him," observed Signor Succi, who entered the apartment, wiping his blade on the advertisement of a new beef-essence, and taking copious draughts of his elixir.
Thus died, as he had lived, dismal, desperate, degraded, the Hunger Bacillus, the last of his race.
(From another Column of the same Paper.)
We rejoice to hear that the Act for making Succination compulsory is to be energetically enforced. Public Succinators have now been appointed to every district, and every parent omitting to have the operation performed upon his infant within two months after birth is to be rigorously prosecuted. Henceforth, as we may remind our readers, anybody "complaining of hunger shall be liable on conviction to be imprisoned for not less than six calendar months, with or without hard labour." We quote the words of clause 3 of the Act.