Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/41

Rh causes do not always bring about the results which are observed only in a certain percentage of cases.

—It is a matter of common experience that in times of epidemics persons equally exposed to infection are not all affected. The weak members of the community are generally more readily affected than the strong ones, the starved than the well fed, the intemperate than the temperate, the fearful than the fearless; but, apart from these often doubtful distinctions, some other influences must be at work in helping some to resist, for many a man or woman of weak constitution has been able to pass through plagues that had carried away more than one of powerful frame. This resistance of some individuals to disease has probably at all times attracted the attention of men, and very early in the history of civilization observations have been made which by gradual extension have led to some of the most striking triumphs of medicine. It will be my object in this lecture to show you how immunity to disease, at first supposed to be due to individual peculiarities or supernatural influences, has gradually become connected with certain external circumstances acting directly or indirectly. Among the factors which are generally discussed in medical books as influencing the liability or immunity of certain individuals to disease I may mention age, sex, family, and race. These, as far as we can see at the present time, have an influence on the occurrence of disease which is in many instances difficult to explain. Some facts, however, tend now and again to lighten our ignorance, and to show that even these apparently inherent qualities are perhaps the result of the transmission of acquired properties through generations of cells or of individuals. This will be more evident perhaps if, by extending our field of observation from one to several kinds, we consider how the immunity of certain species, orders, or even classes of animals is brought about. Take, for instance, the remarkable immunity of the fowl and of the frog to anthrax. At first sight it seems impossible to understand why a small animal like a frog or a fowl should be able to resist a disease that is so rapidly fatal to such large animals as the sheep, man, or even the ox. Pasteur, however, more than twelve years ago recognized that the difference of the body temperature of the various animals was enough to affect the development of the parasite. He immersed a fowl for two days in water, bringing the temperature down to 28° C, and showed that the fowl was as liable to anthrax as any other animal. A similar observation was made later on by another observer, who by raising the temperature of a frog rendered it also liable to the disease. Thus it was demonstrated that certain conditions of temperature were necessary for the anthrax bacillus to attain its full virulence. What