germ (jerm)

[Formerly also ger me (and germen, germin, q. v.); ovary. In popular language often used specifically to denote the mature spores of fungi and of other lower cryp togams, especially of injurious kinds, and, in the case of bacteria, the entire organism. The germ out of which a human being is evolved differs in no visible respect from the germ out of which every animal and plant is evolved. H. Spencer, Prin. of Biol., § 52 2. By extension, an early or but slightly developed state of an organism; an early embryo. See embryo. He marks the bounds which Winter may not pa , And blunts his pointed fury; in its case, Ru et and rude, folds up the tender germ , Uninjur'd, with inimitable art. Cowper , Task, vi. 194. 3. Some or any microbe or micro-organism; a spore: as, a cholera- germ. See germicide. The different kinds of contagia may in e ence be cast-off micro-organisms of a low type, either in H. C. Bastian, Quain's Med. Dict., p. 533. their "finished" condition or in a germ -stage. 4. That from which anything springs or may spring as if from a seed or root; a rudimentary element; a formative principle: as, the germs of civil liberty or of prosperity. Religion then has its germs in our nature, and its development is entrusted to our own care. Channing, Perfect Life, p. 3. The germ of the proce of synthesis is best illustrated in constructive imagination, J. Sully, Outlines of Psychol., p. 337. opposed to that of abiogenesis, or spontaneous generation. See biogenesis. (b) In pathol., the doctrine that zymotic diseases, together with some not usually cla ed as zymotic, are due to the presence in the body of living or ganisms. These organisms, which, so far as they have been positively identified, belong for the most part to the group of bacteria, produce their morbid effects by their germ vital activity, and probably in large part by the formation of poisons called ptomaines. This doctrine no longer rests upon indirect evidence alone, but also on the positive identification of the peccant organisms in a certain number of diseases, as in phthisis, anthrax, relapsing fever, typhoid fever, and some others. Syn. Fetus, Rudiment. See embryo. germaint, a. See germane.