Future of Infectious and Malignant Diseases 
Among these measures immunization against such diseases as 
tetanus and diphtheria has been effective, even though directed 
against intoxication and not infection by the respective agents. 
Antibiotic prophylaxis, directed particularly against 
meningococcal and beta haemolytic streptococcal infections, 
has also been a successful procedure in preventing these dis- 
eases; furthermore, development of drug-resistant mutants has 
been largely avoided when antibiotics were not used indis- 
criminately but were chosen because they were effective against 
a specific organism. 
Thus the present situation on the battlefront is a sort of truce 
based upon the maintenance of ecological balance between man 
and the pathogenic bacteria. Within the conditions imposed 
by the truce many bacterial diseases of man are suppressed while 
at the same time the causative agents are allowed to propagate 
in nature. 
FOOL’S PARADISE 
‘* Here, as there, exists a mob which cannot endure the 
thought of things to which it is not accustomed .. .”’ 
CYRANO DE BERGERAC: Voyages to the 
Moon and the Sun 
There are many factors which may contribute to collapse of 
the truce and resumption of hostilities by the bacterial infections 
in the near or more distant future. Among these factors are 
several which even now play a definite rédle in upsetting the 
balance between man and his infections. 
Prolongation of human life has been the goal of almost all 
Utopias, from Campanella’s City of the Sun in the sixteenth 
century to W. H. Hudson’s Crystal Age in the twentieth. Today, 
increased longevity of the population in general is no longer a 
figment of the imagination but a fact and also a hazard. In- 
creased numbers of individuals reach old age, when they become 
a more attractive prey for infection. In addition, prolongation 
of life in subjects suffering from diseases such as cancer, lupus 
erythematosis, and others creates still another fraction of the 
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