Safeguards against Disease 153 



nilly, just as much as the magnetized needle 

 has to swing to the north, quite without 

 concern whether the ship does or does not go 

 upon the rocks. 



The thing which we want to glean from the 

 rehearsal of this cell contest is, that in both 

 animal cell and bacterial cell the capacities 

 of ordinary life, in this emergency, are set 

 vigorously at work to meet the requirements 

 of a new situation, and upon the way they meet 

 it depends their fate. But while the two 

 kinds of cell may sway and modify a little 

 their every -day functions in their own pro- 

 tection, they no more forge new weapons, 

 than would a stone-mason who should rap an 

 imminent foot-pad over the head with his 

 hammer. 



When these doughty cells succumb to the 

 bacterial poisons which they encounter, they 

 are picked up as dead stuff by other forms 

 of cells (Plate XL, 4), and with the dead in- 

 vading hosts are decently disposed of. 



So at last we see that the body protects 

 itself against bacteria and their poisons by 

 the use of the same agencies which it has made 



