Disease Transmission and Mans Resistance 305 



acted upon bv microbes, and the child or animal may be born with 

 microbial diseases if it survives. This, however, is a co7igenital 

 not an inherited disease. Without considering all of the factors, 

 the layman observes that infants may suffer from the same micro- 

 bial diseases, such as tuberculosis, that one or both parents may 

 have. It seems logical to them to assume that the child inherited 

 the condition, whereas the disease was congenital or was acquired 

 after birth through direct contact with the infected parent. 



AGE 



There are such things as childhood diseases: measles, mumps, 

 chicken pox, whooping cough, and the like. Since these diseases 

 are contagious, the initial contact that a young child has with them 

 may be sufficient to cause infection of the child who may have 

 little or no resistance, or immunity, to the infectious agent unless 

 he has been previously vaccinated. By the time that people reach 

 adulthood they either have had these diseases as children, or, 

 having escaped early contact, they may have come in contact with 

 subclinical doses of the organisms and built up a degree of im- 

 munity to the disease. While the number of adults who contract 

 so-called childhood diseases in their later adult life is not statisti- 

 cally great, there are plenty of such cases on record. In general, 

 adults are affected more severely than they would have been had 

 they contracted these diseases as children. Mumps is particularly 

 severe in males after the age of puberty, since the virus of mumps 

 has an affinity for the sex organs of males and may cause sterility 

 of the individuals concerned. 



MENTAL STATE 

 While it is impossible to point with assurance to mental state as 

 a factor inffiiencing our resistance to disease, it does appear that a 

 happy, care-free individual is less likely to be ill, or at least to feel 

 ill, than a person who is constantly worrying about himself or his 

 unfortunate lot in life. This is certainly true with regard to ulcers, 

 which is a disease primarily of worriers. People who are always 



