Excerpt from Science Progress, Vol. 3
One of the earliest empiricisms with regard to communicable diseases affecting men and animals was the knowledge that some do not affect certain species or certain ages, and, further, that some, like smallpox, scarlet fever, etc., attack an individual generally once only. Medical science has for generations expressed these facts in terms which are familiar to everybody, though their exact nature remained unknown. The terms that were and are still used in a technical sense for indicating that a particular individual is not attackable by a particular disease, are "lack of predisposition," "unsusceptibility," or "immunity." This phraseology went further, and distinguished natural or congenital or spontaneous immunity from "acquired immunity"; the latter indicating that, owing to having passed through one attack, the individual is now possessed of immunity against the particular disease. But it is obvious that these terms are merely paraphrases of conditions that are patent to every one, and are no more or no better understood whether used by laymen or in a technical sense.
After Pasteur showed that various fermentative changes, such as the alcoholic fermentation, acetic acid fermentation, the conversion of urea into ammonium carbonate, are due to the activity of specific microbes - yeast cells, bacterium aceti, or micrococcus ure? respectively - the infectious diseases were likewise assumed to be comparable to specific fermentative processes, caused in the infected body by the specific microbes; and, further, the nature of natural unsusceptibility and acquired immunity began to be discussed.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Science Progress, Vol. 3 (Classic Reprint)