Disease and Its CausesCouncilman, W. T. (William Thomas)
Science
Disease and Its Causes
Councilman, W. T. (William Thomas)
Diseases -- Causes and theories of causation
to combine with both the bacterial cell and the complement which
brings about its destruction, and just as antitoxine is formed so new
amboceptors may be formed.
Few hypotheses have been advanced in science which are more ingenious,
in better accord with the facts, have had greater importance in
enabling the student to grasp the intricacies of an obscure problem,
and which have had an equal influence in stimulating research. The
immunity which results from disease in accordance with this theory, is
due not to conditions preventing the entrance of organisms into the
body, but to greater aptitude on the part of the cells to produce
these protective substances having once learned to do so. An
individual need not practise for many years, having once learned them,
those combinations of muscular action used in swimming; but the habit
at once returns when he falls into the water.
Infectious diseases and recovery are phases of the struggle for
existence between parasite and host, and illustrate the power of
adaptation to environment which is so striking a characteristic of
living matter.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The comparison here is with the atrium of a Pompeiian house.
CHAPTER VIII
SECONDARY, TERMINAL AND MIXED INFECTIONS.--THE EXTENSION OF INFECTION
IN THE INDIVIDUAL.--TUBERCULOSIS.--THE TUBERCLE BACILLUS.--FREQUENCY
OF THE DISEASE.--THE PRIMARY FOCI.--THE EXTENSION OF BACILLI.--THE
DISCHARGE OF BACILLI FROM THE BODY.--INFLUENCE OF THE SEAT OF DISEASE
ON THE DISCHARGE OF BACILLI.--THE INTESTINAL DISEASES.--MODES OF
INFECTION.--INFECTION BY SPUTUM SPRAY.--INFECTION OF WATER
SUPPLIES.--EXTENSION OF INFECTION BY INSECTS.--TRYPANOSOME
DISEASES.--SLEEPING SICKNESS.--MALARIA.--THE PART PLAYED BY
MOSQUITOES.--PARASITISM IN THE MOSQUITO.--INFECTION AS INFLUENCED BY
HABITS AND CUSTOMS.--HOOKWORM DISEASE.--INTER-RELATION BETWEEN HUMAN
AND ANIMAL DISEASES.--PLAGUE.--PART PLAYED BY RATS IN
TRANSMISSION.--THE PRESENT EPIDEMIC OF PLAGUE.
The infectious diseases are often complicated by secondary infections,
some other organism finding opportunity for invasion in the presence
of the injuries produced in the primary disease. In many diseases,
such as diphtheria, scarlet fever and smallpox, death is frequently
due to the secondary infection. The secondary invaders not only find
local conditions favoring a successful attack, but the activity of the
tissue cells on which the production of protective substances
essentially depends has suffered by the primary infection, or the
cells are occupied in meeting the exigencies of this. The body is in
the position of a state invaded by a second power where all its forces
and resources are engaged in repelling the first attack.
What are known as terminal infections occur shortly before death. No
matter what the disease which causes death, in the last hours of life
the body usually becomes invaded by organisms which find their
opportunity in the then defenceless tissues, and the end is often
hastened by this invasion.
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