404 BACTERIOLOGY. 



disposition to disease and increase the resist- 

 ance and cause thereby all setting free of 

 energy to take place physiologically. So 

 long as this is not the case infectious diseases 

 will be always with us, though some of those 

 now prevalent may disappear, while others 

 will remain, and entirely new ones arise. 

 Viewing the question in this aspect, it is 

 easily seen that the infectious diseases can be 

 designated as preventable diseases only with 

 some reservation. The infectious diseases 

 are the expressions of an actually existing 

 and unavoidable situation or state of adapta- 

 tion, which, however, by paying heed to the 

 causes that lead to it may to a certain extent 

 be prevented from recurring in the futiire. 

 I have elsewhere expressed myself in a similar 

 way, for the anthropocentric conception of 

 disease is not scientifically tenable and is 

 one of which we can at most make use to im- 

 press public functionaries and sanitary police. 

 Schleich has in a somewhat different way 

 concisely described disease as " a form of the 

 struggle for existence against those injurious 

 influences to which man is not yet adapted. " 

 The process of adaptation to these injurious 

 influences, however, has for thousands of years 

 been decimating the human race, and the 

 nation and the community are often robbed 



