Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-12-10
HEALTH AND HAPPINESS
BIZ DIR. LEONARD KEENE HIRsHBBRG
A B., NJ A., NJ. D. CJohn Hopkins.

How Your Body Is Made Immune to
Some Diseases.
When the yellow fever immune had
the disease his blood produced the
immunizing principle in sufficient
quantity to kill the fever germs, and
he got well. After that a good deal
Of the principle remained in his blood,
and whenever yellow fever germ
q month or a year or two years later
tried to invade his system 1t was
bounced upon and killed out of hand.
So he became immune to yellow fever.
Immunity of this sort, because it is
produced spontaneously by nature, is
called natural immunity. In some
diseases 1t lasts for many years; in
others 1t lasts but a few weeks, IL
at all.
Besides this natural immunity there
is also an artificial immunity. The
best example of it is presented by
vaccination. You are vaccinated and
thereby become infected with cow
poX, which may be called, for the sake
of olearness. very mild and attenu-
ated form of smallpox. Your blood
at once begins to produce a principle
which tackles and overcome these
sickly smallpox germs, and you soon
grow we'll again. But the anti-small-
pox germ principle remains, and there
after, even If virulent smallpox germs
are introduced into your blood, the
chances are that this principle will
still be present In sufficient quantity
to overcome them. Thus you become
immune to smallpox by the process of
vaccination.
Theory Of Immuniging.
Another way 10 immune a man is
to transfer to his veins serum from
the blood of some animal that in one
way or another has become immune.
THIS serum is full Of the anti-germ
principle and is just as active in the
veins of the human patient as it was
in the veins of the animal which pro-
duced 1t. In other words, the animal
serves as sort of laboratory for the
production of the anti-germ principle,
and then when it has produced enough
this principle is taken out and in
jected into the human patient. The
latter therefore gets his anti-germ
principles ready made.
Both of these schemes for immun-
iZing human beings are based upon
an effort to kill living germs. But
many germs, in themselves, are
harmless and it is only the poisons
they secrete that cause death in hui
man patients, and so there is a sep
arate department OF immunizing de-
voted to combating, not the germs
themselves, but their poisons. We
need pay no attention to this here,
despite its great Importance. because
the researches Of DR.. Wright, whose
valuable work is a standard of COM
parison, has been concerned mainly
with the battle against living germs.
Suffice it to say that the most con-
spicuous of germ poison antidotes is
the familiar diphtheria antitoxin,
which has reduced the death rate in
that dreadful disease enormously and
saved the lives Of thousands of little
children.
| How Ii Acts.
| Now, it is well known to all patholo-
gists, and has been known since
Metchnikoff made his discoveries,
| that in the fight against living germs
| the white corpuscles Of the blood bear
the greater burden. All of the white
corpuscles--or leucocytes as they are
called-in healthy blood are not germ
eaters, but great many of them are.
1t is a simple matter to observe,
| through a good microscope, the war
between leucocytes and germs.
Mix a bit of human blood with a
few drops Of some liquid in which
germs have been bred and place the
mixture under your tense. In 1t, at
the start, you will see the germs wig
| Cling about among the white cor