152 The Story of the Bacteria 



which our own cells elaborate are just as much 

 poisons for the bacteria as is their venomous 

 stuff for us. 



In the end it is the old story of the survival 

 of the fittest. When these two types of cell 

 meet, each trying to get a living in its own 

 way wherever it has been stranded by the 

 wave of circumstance, a new environment is 

 established for the body cell and for the 

 bacterium. And what we dramatize as a 

 battle, is really only the attempt of each to 

 adapt itself to the new conditions furnished 

 by the other; so that each can go on and get 

 a living. The one which adapts itself most 

 readily and completely and quickly wins, by 

 survival. 



We please our fancy sometimes, by making 

 heroes of the leucocytes, dashing at the in- 

 truders in their hereditary bailiwicks, regardless 

 of the risks which they so hardily incur. Let 

 us not indulge in too much of this, lest haply 

 we too be found among the nature fakirs. 

 For, in fact, they are impotent pieces of the 

 game played by physical and chemical forces, 

 and they have to set about the battle willy- 



