100 YEARS AGO

Mr. G. Archdall Reid contributes to the current number of the Monthly Review an instructive and clearly written account of “the rationale of vaccination”... After passing in review the theories which have previously been held to explain acquired immunity, Mr. Reid shows that it is due to an habituation to the toxins of that disease. This result is brought about by the digestion in the blood of the toxins, so that there are present in the animal's blood toxins in all stages of attenuation, from those newly produced by the microbes, and extremely virulent, to those produced in the beginning of the disease and now in a state of great enfeeblement. Up that graduated scale the cells of the animal react till complete immunity is attained. The serum treatment artificially supplies digestive substances and, what is even more important, a scale of attenuated toxins. Applying these principles to the case of small-pox, the necessity for periodical vaccination is established. It is pointed out that, since small-pox is an air-borne disease, isolation, by itself, has no greater power of controlling small-pox than the historic old lady with a broom had of sweeping back the Atlantic.

From Nature 16 January 1902.

50 YEARS AGO

Patterns of Marriage. It is possible to give only a few of the results of this research. One point that soon became obvious was that like tended to marry like — the intelligent man, the intelligent woman; the neurotic, the neurotic. Sexual attraction played only a minor part in drawing two people together. Among the psychiatrically sound couples 45 per cent claimed to be happily married, 36 per cent considered their marriage satisfactory, 10 per cent unsatisfactory and 9 per cent admitted to being positively unhappy. In the neurotic group happiness or satisfaction in marriage was less frequent. It is clear also from the answers given that children ranked highest in bringing about marital happiness and that other factors, in diminishing order of importance, were as follows: “clerical rating of personality, economic status, intelligence, orgasm adequacy of the female, pre-marital chastity, good looks, stature, rating of personality by test, similarities between husband and wife and test responses”. Frequency of intercourse and youth bore no relationship at all to marital happiness.

From Nature 19 January 1952.