all because of an anti-toxin."

"My, my, what shall we do!" said Mrs. Consumption Germ, "even the school
people are after us. I heard Miss Measles and little Master Scarlet
Fever say that a doctor comes every day to some of the schools. They
said that in some of the school-rooms the teacher had the nerve to hang
a placard, on which was printed, 'Prevention Better Than Cure.'

"I'll tell you I don't like these new times; this Hygiene the people
talk of is a regular ogre to our children.

"In some schools the teachers are even having lunches for the little
children who are pale and thin. They are having their eyes examined.
Some are having adenoids taken out, just to make those children so
strong that we can't catch them.

"I thought that I had a fair chance to get little Jimmy Brown, but his
teacher talked to his mother one day at recess. The next day his mother
whisked him off down town and had the doctor take the adenoids from
behind his nose. Now he is as strong as any little boy, because he can
breathe through his nose. So I lost my chance at him, you see."

"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Consumption Germ, "one can't even hide in an
old stump of a tooth. Some man with sharp-looking things tells you that
o-u-t spells 'out and begone,' as we used to say in playing the game."

"Do you know I believe that man Pasteur was our greatest enemy?"

"Tell me, who was he?" said Mrs. Consumption Germ.

"Well, he was a man who lived in France. He discovered the germ that
killed the silk-worm and also the cause of the loss of grapes in that
country.

"The wine and silk merchants of that country paid him immense sums of
money for this work.

"He studied all about our friends and relatives, and it was he who first
started all this anti-toxin, which saves the people, but which kills us
by the millions.

"But with all this great work and the work of their great men, we
sometimes catch folks napping. We catch our greatest enemy, the white
blood-cells, when they are without their fighting clothes on, and then
we get busy. In this way we can make up for a great deal of lost time.

"Of course, you have heard of Dr. Jenner. He was another enemy of ours.
He taught the people about vaccination, which keeps them from having
small-pox. I am glad to say there will always be a few persons who do
not follow these new ideas. If this were not true, one would starve to
death."

"I know, Mrs. Pneumonia Germ, that you love close, damp, places