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We floated down to the office, which happened to be unoccupied at the time. The medical ghost helped himself to a cigarette from a trayful on the mantel-piece, and lighting it, he seated himself in an armchair, and puffed away with evident enjoyment. I noticed the smoke, which he inhaled continually, oozed from all parts of his body.

“My dear fellow,” he said impressively, “you must understand that all diseases are caused by germs–microscopic bugs and plants, you know, many of them so small that they are invisible to an ordinary microscope, or, if seen at all, are not recognized. There are thousands and thousands of them, and each and every one has its mission in life, and preys upon and destroys other germs. Now, the human body is constantly getting a lot of germs inside of it which do not belong there. Some are taken in by the lungs, while floating in the air; some by the stomach, by the food and drink; some by the skin, etc.

“These germs are met by their natural enemies which live in man’s blood–his body-guard, as it were–and are destroyed. But if the attacking army is very large, or from some reason the home army has been weakened and decimated, then the invaders flourish, establish themselves and wax powerful and strong, and the man becomes what is called ‘sick.’

“Come,” he said, rising abruptly, and throwing the unconsumed end of his cigarette into the fireplace. “Come with me to the laboratory, and I will show you in about two minutes more than I could explain if I talked for years, and a great deal more satisfactorily.”

We floated down to the laboratory, and the ghost took from the shelf a wide-mouthed bottle and held it up to the light.

“Here,” he said, “we have a culture. You, of course, understand how the germs of disease are cultivated for experimental use. It is needless for me to explain to you that certain media are used for these cultures, such as milk, beef-broth, etc.

“Here we have the germ of diphtheria, here of tuberculosis, here of typhoid fever, etc. That little short jar over yonder contains some cholera bacilli, which have been lately sent here. Now look at this typhoid germ. If we took a drop of healthy blood and put some of these typhoid germs in it, how they would wiggle! but if the drop of blood was from a typhoid patient, they won’t wiggle very long, as you know. See this blunt-headed chap which we have to 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.”