There was once upon a time a man who underwent a severe and prolonged
attack of Microbophobia. You may not find the term in the
dictionaries, nor in the medical lexicons; but, as it is quite
possible that there are a variety of things in heaven and earth not
yet dreamt of in the lexicons, there is really no justification for
denying the existence of microbophobia on that ground. And as to the
name itself, there is hydrophobia, and photophobia, and
Anglophobia--so why not microbophobia?
Microbophobia is a disease of advanced civilization, of recent origin,
and infectious. Its victims are to be found among the married rather
than the unmarried, in the city rather than in the country, and among
the cultured rather than the uncultured. In a word, the disease rages
most in college and university communities, but is also pronounced in
high school, grade school, and kindergarten spheres of influence. As
all these, however, are in close connection with colleges and
universities, microbophobia may be said to belong to institutions of
higher learning.
Microbophobia rarely succeeds in engrafting itself onto healthy
organisms. No one in perfectly sound mental, physical, and spiritual
health need fear its attacks. Its host is almost always in a state of
depletion at the time of colonization, and the point of attack
invariably the _sensus communis_, an organ situated in that part of
the anatomy usually known as the cranial cavity.