The opening of Preface
When, ten years ago, I was preparing my Lessons on the Comparative Pathology of Inflammation for the press, I hoped that the other sections of the phagocytic theory—Immunity, Atrophies, and Healing—would soon follow this first work. This hope has not been realised, and it has needed prolonged work ere I could publish the volume I have just completed.
During this long period I sent out several ballons d’essai under the form of summaries of the question of Immunity, published in the Semaine médicale (1892), the Ergebnisse of Lubarsch and Ostertag (1886), and the Handbuch der Hygiene by Weyl (1897). I there attempted, as far as possible, to give a general picture of the phenomena of Immunity in the infective diseases, and it was my desire to excite criticism and opposition, in order to determine the fate of the theory of phagocytes in its application to the problem of Immunity.