SAFEGUARDS OF THE BODY AGAINST DISEASE* 
By T. Mitchell Prudden. 
Author of “Dust and Its Dangers,” “The Story of the 
Bacteria,” etc., etc. 
Among the shibboleths of physicians one of the 
more recent and perhaps the most widely popular to¬ 
day is the word immunity, relating to infectious or 
bacterial disease. The subject holds the floor in the 
learned societies; it crams the medical books and jour¬ 
nals ; it lures the solitary workers in the laboratories 
to long and toilsome quests. At last the layman has 
begun the query as to what it is all about, and how 
the new lore which filters through the magazines and 
newspapers out to him may affect his chance for the 
healthful threescore years and ten which is his birth¬ 
right, but of which he is too often ruthlessly deprived. 
It is really worth while for everybody to know 
something about immunity to infectious diseases. For 
the new doctrines and their practical applications in 
the workaday world are full of promise for the preven¬ 
tion and cure of the infectious maladies, if only the 
public will bear its part with intelligence and zeal. 
The beginning of the story goes back more than a 
quarter of a century, when the notion still lingered on 
that disease was a mysterious something apart from 
*Reprinted from The Outlook by permission. 
127 
