Round the fountain.

Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Round the fountain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    45/238 page 31
    choice around them. They didn’t quarrel about it, but lived together in peace and amity ; but you couldn't well invite a friend to dinner unless he agreed with you on general principles, and so the lines of cleavage tended to grow till there were perhaps five or six such family groups. It was really only general principles which separated them ; even in the same group there were little differences in the hors d'auvres and savouries, though the joint and pudding were the same. Latitude was given even to individual tastes, and when a streptococcus felt unwell he was quite at liberty to stop in bed and alter his enzymes within such reasonable limits as the family rule prescribed. And so the streptococci flourished and abounded ; the wish of their hearts was fulfilled, and they became a dominant genus, and in all the alimentary canal, from mouth to anus, none were so blithe and fruitful as they. There was, however, one thing which was a subject of dispute amongst them—namely, the length of their chains. Most of them argued that it was handier to grow in short chains. For daily wear, they said, it was ridiculous to go about in such long chains that you got tied up into knots or tripped over your own tail. Some went so far as to declare that it was unhygienic to sweep up tubercle bacilli with your skirts. But there were others, and these amongst the most aristocratic, who said that appearances ought to be kept up, even at some little inconvenience. What, they argued, was the use of always dividing in one plane unless you had a respect- able chain to show for your trouble? So they went about in long chains, even on week days. Thus there came to be long-chained sects and short-chained sects, even within the limits of a single tribal group, while there were 3«
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3