NEW CONCEPTIONS IN SCIENCE 



Such is the story of the beginning. Confessedly 

 it is no more than a beginning. The problem of im- 

 munity is, at bottom, a chemical problem. But as 

 to what is the chemical nature of the antitoxins or 

 the toxins, we have as yet but little idea. The sub- 

 ject has not yet passed out of the purely observation- 

 al, or, as one might say, physiological stage. So far 

 as that goes, however, neither have any other of the 

 vital processes. So we need not reproach these pa- 

 tient, unflagging workers, that they must still talk 

 somewhat vaguely of "receivers" and "anti-bod- 

 ies" and "complement" without being able to de- 

 fine these more precisely. 



It is a great beginning none the less. For in the 

 end it means that all contagious and infectious dis- 

 ease will be banished from this earth. True, the 

 number of successful antitoxins is not yet great; 

 they may be counted on the fingers of one hand. 

 But this may be said : medicine must have been the 

 earliest of the arts ; witness the place of the medi- 

 cine-man in our now disappearing savage tribes. In 

 some rude fashion, it must have been practised for 

 tens of thousands of years. All these uncounted 

 centuries of mingled guesswork and experiment 

 came to this, that at the opening of the twentieth 

 century A.D. there were, aside from the new anti- 

 toxins, two real specifics for two of all the diseases 

 that man is heir to. These were quinine, for ague, 



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