Herbert Conn: Mark Twain’sMicrobiologist MuseA 1905 Twain story features an imaginary world containing human-likesocieties of microbes, noteworthy for their industriousness

Kenneth M. Noll

Mark Twain (1835–1910) and themicrobiologist Herbert Conn(1859–1917) lived in the heydayof the early bacteriologists, in-cluding Pasteur, Koch, Wino-

gradski, Lister, and Tyndall. They and otherswere discovering the fundamental roles that mi-crobes fulfill in agriculture, public health, andindustry. Conn, a founder of ASM and an earlyauthority in dairy bacteriology, not onlybrought microbes to the attention of the generalpublic, but he also interested Twain in this sub-ject.

Early in his professional career, Conn wasconcerned about medical and public health ed-ucation. In 1888 he published articles in Scienceinsisting on the need to teach bacteriology inmedical and nursing schools as well as publicschools. Conn also noticed a shortage of bacte-

riology textbooks geared toward the public. Re-alizing that society did not fully appreciate theimportance of hygiene, he began writing booksabout the roles of microbes in everyday life toraise public awareness of microbes and to im-prove public health. Thus he began a long careeras a communicator of bacteriology to the public,a role that ultimately connected him to Twain.

Conn, Who Came to Bacteriology

Accidentally, Soon Gained Fame

Conn came to study bacteria almost inciden-tally. He received his Ph.D. in zoology fromJohns Hopkins University in 1884. Although heexpressed some interest in bacteriology while astudent, prominent biologists at the schoolhelped to dissuade him from pursuing that field.

One of them commented, “No ordinaryman can study bacteria. That takes a geniuslike Pasteur.”

Conn’s graduate education at Johns Hop-kins was thoroughly grounded in evolution.Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Speciesappeared less than 30 years earlier, makingevolution a hot topic of the day. One ofConn’s professors at Hopkins had workedclosely with Thomas H. Huxley, who wascalled “Darwin’s Bulldog.” Conn’s conflu-ence of interests in evolution and bacteriawere far ahead of his time considering thecentral role that evolution plays in microbi-ological research today.

Conn encountered microbiology soon af-ter he joined the Biology Department atWesleyan University in Middletown, Conn.in 1884. There he met and befriended Wil-

Summary

• Although Twain and Conn did not meet, eachread the other’s writings, and Twain drew onConn in musing about microbes.

• Conn contributed to contemporary microbiol-ogy, focused on dairy research and publichealth, and helped to found the ASM.

• Twain referred often to microorganisms andone of his stories, “3,000 Years Among theMicrobes,” depicts an imaginary inner world ofthoughtful, highly verbal, and mostly helpfulmicroorganisms.

• Because that story was not published duringTwain or Conn’s lifetime, Conn did not appre-ciate how much he influenced Twain.

Kenneth M. Noll isa Professor of Mi-crobiology in theDepartment of Mo-lecular & Cell Biol-ogy at the Univer-sity of Connecticut,Storrs.

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bur Atwater, a nutritional chem-ist, who three years later wasappointed to head the new Con-necticut Agricultural Experi-mental Station located at whatlater became the University ofConnecticut.

In part because Conn helpedto solve the mystery surround-ing an outbreak of typhus inConnecticut, he was asked to di-rect the bacteriology laboratoryat the new Station. Several stu-dents at Wesleyan had inexpli-cably died from typhus. Conntraced the source of their infec-tions to raw oysters they had alleaten and further determined

that the shellfish became contaminated when anoysterman had rinsed them in sewage-contami-nated water. This investigative feat was reportedin newspapers across the country.

Dairy research that Conn did at the ConnecticutAgricultural Experimental Station soon added tohis growing fame. For example, to show off hissuccesses in improving microbial cultures neededfor producing butter and cheese, he was asked tosponsor an exhibit on dairy bacteriology at the1893 Chicago World’s Fair. While there, he andhis assistant William Esten produced five batchesof butter daily for several weeks. These activities atthe fair were widely reported, and helped to makehim more of a celebrity.

Although Conn worked primarily in agricul-tural bacteriology, his interest in public healthissues led state officials to seek his expertise andservices. Conn believed that the public needed tobetter understand the essential roles that mi-crobes play in their lives. To address that cause,he became a prolific author of books and articlesabout microbes and also gave public lectures onrelated topics. The Story of Germ Life, which hepublished in 1897, became one of his most pop-ular books. It describes how microbes are usedin manufacturing, their importance in maintain-ing the natural world, and the fact that only aminority of microbes cause disease. “It is hopedthat the result (of this book) may be to show thatthese organisms are to be regarded not primarilyin the light of enemies, but as friends, and thus tocorrect some of the very general but erroneousideas concerning their relation to our life,” hewrote in its preface.

Frequent Microbial References in Twain’s

Writings

Meanwhile, during the 1880s and 1890s, Twainexplored new ways to frame his satires of man’sover estimated self-importance. One recurrenttheme throughout these later writings was aportrayal of men as small creatures. For in-stance, Twain referred to the “small King andhis butterfly dukelets” in Personal Recollectionsof Joan of Arc by the Sieur Louis de Conte(1895). In the better-known work, Prince andthe Pauper (1881), he compared man to butter-flies and ants. In a notebook from that period, hemade men even smaller, writing, “I think we areonly the microscopic trichina concealed in theblood of some vast creature’s veins.”

In 1897 Twain jotted ideas for a story hecalled “The General and the Cholera Mi-crobes.” “The globe is a living creature, and thelittle stinking human race and the other animalsare the vermin that infest it—the microbes,” hewrote. Although the stage was set for Twain towrite in more depth about microbiology, heawaited further facts and inspiration before cre-ating a fully imagined microbial world. Thatinspiration came during the same year whenConn published The Story of Germ Life, a bookwe know Twain read and which influenced hima great deal.

Twain began writing “3,000 Years Amongthe Microbes” on 20 May 1905, while on holi-day in New Hampshire. The next month he toldhis publisher, “I am deep in a new book which Ienjoy more than I have enjoyed any other fortwenty years, and I hope it will take me theentire summer to write it.” He took a breakfrom writing on 5 June, the first anniversary ofthe death of his wife, Livy. He resumed work,writing more than 100,000 words until hestopped on 23 June. Brief additions to the storycan be found in his notes in later years, but thestory remained unpublished during his lifetime.It first came into print in 1967 as part of acompendium of his writings, Mark Twain’sWhich Was the Dream? and Other SymbolicWritings of His Later Years, compiled by JohnS. Tuckey.

The story “3,000 Years Among the Mi-crobes” recounts the life of a man called Huck,who is transformed into a cholera germ withinthe body of Blitzkowski, an old tramp. ThereHuck meets other microbes belonging to differ-

Conn

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ent “societies” and calling themselves“Sooflaskies.” Among these Sooflaskies, Huckmeets the character Duke, an amateur scientistand a member of a religious order. They con-verse at length about the activities and philoso-phies within those imagined societies. For in-stance, Huck asks Duke if lower animals wouldbe allowed to accompany them to “the HappyLand” after death, and the Duke assures himthat all creatures would do so, including “eventhe invisible and deadly microbe that feeds uponour bodies and rots them with disease!” Thus,Duke reveals that the Sooflaskies have their ownmicrobes, which are called “swinks.”

Although Duke’s world was created for theSooflaskies, he says it would be uninhabitablewere it not for the swinks. They are responsiblefor decomposing dead animals, setting free “alot of oxygen, nitrogen, and other things neces-sary to the plant-table,” he tells Huck, explain-ing that a plant uses these elements “with theexception of the nitrogen, which it must get laterthrough the labors of other breeds of swinks.”

Thus Twain misconstrued some microbiolog-ical details that Conn understood and describedcorrectly in his book. For example, contrary towhat Twain wrote, microbial decompositiondoes not directly release oxygen. Remarkably,however, Twain grasped what Conn had writ-ten about how microbes fix nitrogen, describingit in his fictional world as being processedthrough the agency of a type of swink before itbecomes available to plants. Remarkably, Bei-jerinck had reported microbial nitrogen fixationonly as recently as 1888, a process that Connstudied at the Agricultural Station and describedin The Story of Germ Life.

Twain through Duke also described swinks asbeing important contributors to industry in theworld of the Sooflaskies, producing linen, jute,bread, wine, beer, butter, and tobacco. Probablynot by accident, those swink activities are listedin the same order as they appear in the secondchapter of Conn’s book. Praising the practicalimportance of the swinks, Duke says to Huck,“. . .they create Our wealth for Us, they prepareit for Our hand. We take it and use it.” Bycontrast, he sees disease-causing microbes to beof considerably less consequence. “Take all theother disease-germs in a mass . . . they are re-sponsible for ten graves out of a hundred, that isall. We have seen that the swink—and the swinkalone—saved our planet from denudation and

irremediable sterility in the beginning; saved Usand all subordinate life from extinction; is stillstanding between Us and extinction to-day.”These passages provide further evidence that thewritings of Conn persuaded Twain of the fun-damental importance—and goodness—of mi-crobes.

Mark Twain never wrote another tale involv-ing microbes. However, he picked up many ofthe same themes covered in 3,000 Years in hisstory The Chronicles of Young Satan in hisMysterious Stranger tales (1916). Perhaps moreimportantly, in describing an imaginary world ofmicrobes living in communities within a humanbody, Twain foreshadowed our modern efforts tostudy the body as an ecosystem in which microbesplay a critical role. We now marshal metagenomicanalyses to study the microbial “societies” of thegastrointestinal tract—bringing scientific realityto a realm Twain depicted through literature andimagination .

Conn Influenced—but Never the Twain

Did Meet

In his scientific writings, Connstressed the beneficial aspects ofmicrobes, and Twain took thismessage to heart. In “3,000 YearsAmong the Microbes,” throughthe character Huck, Twain ex-plicitly acknowledged Conn asthe source for his inspirationabout microbes. “In the World,when I was studying micrology(sic) under Prof. H. W. Conn, weknew all these facts,” Huck saysto his audience in the story. Thus,a distinguished American micro-biologist joined the elite cadre ofworld figures that Twain men-tioned in his works.

Because this story was notpublished during Twain or Conn’s lifetime,Conn probably did not know just how much hehad influenced Twain. Moreover, there is noevidence that Conn and Twain met, although weknow that Conn read Twain’s published works.While on sabbatical leave in Europe, Conn, likeTwain, grew tired of the seemingly endless pa-rade of classical paintings he saw in art muse-ums. “I am in the position of Mark Twain,” hewrote in his diary, “being able to recognize a St.

Twain

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Sebastian by seeing a man tied to a tree and filledfull of arrows. Some way St. Sebastian don’tlook in pain and appears to be rather enjoyinghimself . . .” This comment shows Conn’s wrysense of humor and echoes what Twain wrote inInnocents Abroad (1869) about paintings of St.Sebastian.

Following his return from Europe in August1898, Conn’s career path changed. That Decem-ber he attended a meeting of the American Soci-ety of Naturalists in New York, where he metwith E. O. Jordon of the University of Chicago.They talked of forming a society focused onbacteriology, and invited A. C. Abbott of theUniversity of Pennsylvania to join them in thisdiscussion. Their efforts led them to found theSociety of American Bacteriologists the follow-ing year in New Haven, and Conn became sec-retary of this new society—the predecessor ofthe American Society for Microbiology (ASM).

While Twain was writing “3,000 YearsAmong the Microbes” in 1905, Conn wasasked to lead a new state laboratory devotedto the diagnosis of infectious diseases. By thistime, he had relinquished his duties at theConnecticut Agricultural Station as well as hispost as Director of the Cold Spring HarborLaboratory, enabling him to shift his focus to

public health. He became active in theAmerican Public Health Association,later served on its executive committee,and from there became involved in effortsto enact laws requiring the pasteurizationof milk. He also served on the New YorkCity Milk Commission, whose decisionsinfluenced pasteurization legislationaround the country. As a member of com-mittees developing new public healthstandards, he typically sought to recon-cile conflicting views, while holding firmto his own high standards. He oftenmoved contentious debates forward topractical solutions.

Conn held a teaching philosophywidely promoted in educational circlestoday. His son, former ASM PresidentHarold J. Conn, attended Wesleyanwhile his father was a professor there.He once told his father that studentsenrolled in his introductory lecturecourses on evolution and bacteriologybecause they were considered “snap,”that is, relatively easy courses. “I make

these two courses easy intentionally,” he told hisson. “I put into them ideas that I think all thestudents ought to know, and I want as many totake them as possible. Even though they take thecourses just to avoid hard work, they learnsomething; and I think that does them moregood than it would if I made the work so diffi-cult only the best students would elect thecourses.” Like those courses, Conn’s books ex-plained difficult subjects in ways his readerscould comprehend. When he spoke publicly, hecommunicated effectively with his audiencesand provided information relevant to their dailylives.

In both his teaching and his public presenta-tions, Conn was ahead of his time. His booksand lectures were approachable without beingcondescending. There is a lesson here for thosescientists and administrators who consider com-munication of science to society as unnecessaryand who dismiss it as diverting them from other,seemingly more important efforts. Conn was anexpert at distilling information to its essentialsand describing science in a manner that held theinterest of his readers and audiences. If we caneliminate the phrase to “dumb down” science,we will do much to honor the memory of Her-bert W. Conn.

F I G U R E 3

Original title page of the manuscript for “3,000 years Among the Microbes.” (Imagecourtesy of the Mark Twain Project, The Bancroft Library, University of California,Berkeley.)

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Quotations by H. W. Conn are from an unpublished biography (A Religious Scientist at the Turn of the Century. HerbertWilliam Conn of Wesleyan University) written by his son, Harold J. Conn. Special Collections and Archives at WesleyanUniversity provided that document to Dr. Noll. Portions of that biography appeared in the Journal of Bacteriology articlelisted below.

SUGGESTED READING

Conn, H. J. 1948. Professor Herbert William Conn and the founding of the Society. J. Bacteriol. 12:275–296.Conn, H. W. 1897. The Story of Germ Life. D. Appleton and Company, New York. (available free, without illustrations, fromseveral online sources).Ketterer, David (ed.). 2003. Mark Twain—Tales of Wonder. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.Royal, C. J. 1979. Mark Twain’s diminishment of man; moral, intellectual, and physical aspects. Ph.D. dissertation, TexasTech University, Lubbock (available online).For more information visit Dr. Noll’s webpage accessible at www.mcb.uconn.edu/fac.php?name�nollkm.

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