Alan Jupiter, age lo, of Albany, N. Y.,

Aaren Rives, age' 9 of Mountain View, Calif for their question:

What are germs?

We share our world with teeming hordes of microbes, or microorganisms ‑a splendid word which means small living things, And small they are, too small for our eyes to see. Some microbes are microscopic plants, some belong in the animal kingdom and a whole host of these tiny living things are so strange that they have not yet been classified as plants or animals. Swarms of assorted microbes float in the air, on every speck of dust, in the purest water, on everything we touch indoors and out, in our food and even throughout our bodies,

In the language of science, a. germ is a tiny bud of living substance.  ­This little bud of magic cells may multiply and grow into a whole plant or animal. But the language of science often differs from the language we use everyday. In everyday language, germs are tiny enemies that invade our bodies. We say that colds, boils, measles and a long list of other pesky diseases are caused by germs. These germs belong in the teeming world of microbes. N o one knows how many varieties there are and we cannot escape them. For the microbes in a spanking clean house outnumber the stars in the universe.

Many of these microbes are our friends and we could not possibly live in the world without their help. Many other varieties are neither our friends nor enemies. Just a few of the vast horde of microbes are our enemies and these we call germs. They enter the body through scratches, cuts and wounds, through the skin lining the nose, mouth and throat and sometimes with our food.

We can protect ourselves from many enemy germs with a little good sense, Germ‑killing iodine will kill off many of the little enemies trying to enter through scratches and cuts on the skin.

An antiseptic or germ‑killing mouth wash will destroy many of the little pests in the mouth and throat, The body also has tricks to destroy many invading germs before they get started.

But no matter how hard we try, some germs may get through and cause trouble. They set up housekeeping in the cells of the body, multiply and give off damaging poisons. Many new medicines have been discovered to help the body fight these invading germs. One of these magic medicines is penicillin which helps the body destroy the germs which cause scarlet fever, pneumonia and tonsillitis.

These diseases and many others are caused by bacteria, which are midgets of the plant world: Malaria, a disease of the tropics, is caused by protozoa, which are midget germs of the animal kingdom. The ordinary cold is caused by viruses, so small that science is still trying to discover how to cope with them.

No germs are large enough to be seen without a microscope. They come in assorted shapes and sizes and in the world of microbes there are giants and dwarfs. A row of 60 bacteria may equal the width of a human hair and 25,000 of them may equal one inch. A whale of a bacterium may be attacked by a mousy virus, for there are enemy germs, even in the world of microbes.