INFECTION AND IMMUNITY 



CHAPTER I 

 INTRODUCTION 



A SURVEY of the earliest writings in medicine shows that many if 

 not all the diseases with which we have to deal today were existing 

 then. Smallpox, plague, cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery, diph- 

 theria, tuberculosis, malaria, erysipelas, measles, scarlatina, rabies 

 were known to Hippocrates and Galen as they are to us; wound 

 infections existed then as now; nephritis, diabetes, rheumatism, gout, 

 various types of anemia, cancer, etc., occupied the physicians of 

 the days of the Pharaohs as they do those of the present century. 

 This acknowledgment carries with it the admission that during 

 all these centuries the physician has not been able to master these 

 diseases. 



Much progress has of course been made, but much more still 

 remains to be done. This is no reflection upon the medical men of 

 the past; they have accomplished their share in the evolution of 

 medical science, and it is unnecessary to point out at this place 

 how well this has been done. Since medical science depends for its 

 own progress upon progress in the subservient sciences, the rapid 

 evolution of modern medicine is the direct result of the wonderful 

 advances in the domain of chemistry, physics, and the various 

 branches of biology. In the dark days of the medieval ages active 

 progress was out of the question, and it is no wonder that therapeutic 

 empiricism sank to its lowest level. Material advance of medical 

 science as a science could only be possible after a foundation had 

 been created, of which anatomy, physiology, pathology, bacteriology, 

 and modern pharmacology are integral components, and as the 

 latter four are the product of the last century almost exclusively, 

 nay even of the last fifty years, there is small cause for wonder that 

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