Immunity, protective inoculations in infectious diseases and serum-therapy.

  • Sternberg, George Miller, 1838-1915.
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Immunity, protective inoculations in infectious diseases and serum-therapy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    to the guinea-pig-, and to field-mice, while house-mice, rabbits, cattle, and swine are to a great extent im- mune. In addition to this general race immunity or suscepti- bility we have individual differences in susceptibility or resistance to the action of pathogenic bacteria, which may be either natural or acquired. As a rule, young animals are more susceptible than older ones. Thus in man the young are especially susceptible to scarlet fever, whoop- ing-cough and other children's diseases, and after forty years of age the susceptibility to tubercular infection is very much diminished. Among the lower animals it is a matter of common laboratory experience that the very young of susceptible species may be infected when inocu- lated with an attenuated culture which older animals of the same species are able to resist. Considerable differences as to susceptibility may also exist among adults of the same species. In man these differences in individual susceptibility to infectious dis- eases are frequently manifested. Of a number of persons exposed to infection in the same way some may escape entirely, while others have attacks differing in severity and duration. In our experiments upon the lower ani- mals we constantly meet with similar results, some indi- viduals proving to be exceptionally resistant. Excep- tional susceptibility or immunity may also be to some extent a family characteristic or one of race. Thus the negro race is decidedly less subject to yellow fever than the white race, and this disease is more fatal among the fair-skinned races living in the north of Europe than among the Latin races living in tropical or subtropical regions. On the other hand, small-pox appears to be ex- ceptionally fatal among negroes.