THE OPTIMISM OF PATHOLOGY 305 



assaults of microbes and poisons. Professor Adami 

 writes : " As shown by Sir William Leishman's 

 simple and beautiful experiment (which formed the 

 basis of Sir Almroth Wright's opsonic technique), 

 there is not one pathogenic microbe which cannot 

 be shown to be taken up and digested sooner or 

 later by the polymorpho-nuclear leucocytes of the 

 human blood." That our marvelously well-equipped 

 bodyguard occasionally fails should not lead us to 

 forget its normal success in counteracting assaults 

 and intrusions. We are not at all convinced by 

 Professor Adami's arguments in support of the 

 thesis that inborn capacities for resisting disease 

 are the hereditary outcome of individual bodily 

 adjustments in the same direction; or that evolu- 

 tion, whether progressive or retrogressive, is " the 

 outcome of an active process of continuous adjust- 

 ment between organisms and their environment," 

 if by " adjustment " is meant a direct reaction on 

 the part of the living matter to its environment; 

 but we think that he has done good service in 

 calling attention afresh to the great importance of 

 individual bodily modifications, the direct results of 

 environmental and functional peculiarities, in show- 

 ing that these are often effectively self-preservative, 

 and in suggesting what still remains a rather vague 

 hypothesis, that peculiarities in surrounding influ- 

 ences may in some way that we do not understand 

 serve as the stimuli of variations, more deeply seated 

 than the dents and imprints which are technically 

 called modifications. What many will find the 



