Infection, Immunity and Serum Therapy in Relation to the Infectious Diseases which Attack Man; with Considerations of the Allied Subjects of Agglutination, Precipitation, Hemolysis, etc.

Chicago: American Medical Association Press, 1906. First edition.

SCARCE FIRST EDITION OF LANDMARK BOOK ON INFECTION AND IMMUNITY INCLUDES "DISEASES OF DOUBTFUL OR UNKNOWN ETIOLOGY" (ALL NOW IDENTIFIED!)

8 inches tall hardcover, original black cloth boards, bright gilt title to spine, x, 600 pages. Minor edgewear, handstamp of Dept. of Bacteriology Medical College University of Cincinnati to front free endpaper and title page. Very good. LAID IN ORIGINAL ALBUMEN PHOTOGRAPH of postmortem lungs inscribed on verso, "Lungs/ Joseph Mendoza/ Subacute plague/ ground squirrel infection/ Alameda Co. Calif 1909/ Aug, with handstamp of photographer, R.E. Wales.

PREFACE: "Immunity, in its present state of development, with its manifold new terms and special methods of experimentation, is a subject which appears difficult to one who has not studied the newer literature assiduously and grown into a knowledge of the conditions through actual work in the laboratory. Much of the literature is technical in character and appears in journals not commonly found in the hands of the physician and student. Much of it also is comparatively recent, and its 'essence' has not yet appeared in books which are in general use. The literature of immunity, moreover, grows so amazingly that the analysis even of current works is a task of no mean proportions."

CONTENTS: Parasitism, Infectiousness, Contagiousness; Infectious Etiology; General Considerations; History and Development; Natural Immunity; Acquired Immunity; Toxins and Antitoxins; The "Structure" of Toxins and Antitoxins and the Nature of the Toxin-Antitoxin Reaction; The Phenomena of Agglutination; The Nature of the Substances Concerned in Agglutination . A. General Properties of Bactericidal Serums; B. Amboceptors and Complements; Cytotoxins; Phagocytosis; The Side-Chain Theory of Ehrlich and Its Relation to the Theory of Phagocytosis; Principles of Serum Therapy; Group I.-Acquired Immunity Is Chiefly Antitoxic; Group II.-Acquired Immunity Is Chiefly Anti-bacterial; Group III.-Acute Infections in Which Lasting Immunity Is Not Established; Group IV.-Chronic Infections in Which Lasting Immunity Is Not Established; Group V.-Diseases of Protozoon Etiology; Group VI.-Diseases of Doubtful or Unknown Etiology [NOTE: ALL OF THESE ARE NOW IDENTIFIED!]: Hydrophobia, Syphilis, Yellow Fever, Typhus Fever, Dengue Fever, Acute Articular Rheumatism, Smallpox and Vaccinia, Chickenpox (Varicella ), Scarlet Fever, Measles, German Measles (Rotheln), Whooping Cough, Mumps.

HOWARD TAYLOR RICKETTS (1871 - 1910) was an American pathologist after whom the Rickettsiaceae family is named. Ricketts undertook research at Northwestern University on blastomycosis, and. later worked in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana and at the University of Chicago on Rocky Mountain spotted fever. While in Montana, Ricketts and his assistant discovered that the vector that carried the pathogen for Rocky Mountain spotted fever is a tick. It was not at once clear what kind of organism the pathogen was; eventually it was named Rickettsia, the first of the Rickettsiales to be identified. However, for decades, until electron microscopy and other technologies became sufficiently advanced, it was not known whether Rickettsiales were bacteria, viruses, or something in between. They now are known to be bacteria specialized for intracellular parasitism. Ricketts was devoted to his research and, on several occasions, injected himself with pathogens to study their effects. The pathogen causing Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Rickettsia rickettsii was named after him. In 1910, Ricketts became interested in a strain of murine-carried typhus known as tabardillo due to a major outbreak in Mexico City, and the apparent similarity of the disease to spotted fever. Days after isolating the organism that he believed caused typhus, he himself died of the disease.

GARRISON-MORTON No. 2564.