This volume is a brilliant, lucid, and comprehensive analysis of the work carried out by Lurie and his associates during the past 40 years.
The innate and adaptive physiological activities of the mononuclear phagocytes are the core factors which determine whether the largely intracellular bacillus proliferates or becomes inactivated and whether the disease progresses or is arrested. The author feels that there is no convincing evidence that the specific humoral antibodies are of major significance in immunity to tuberculosis. The ingenious experiments embrace such disciplines as pathology, immunology, bacteriology, genetics, endocrinology, epidemiology, biochemistry, and enzymology. The role of allergy in immunity in tuberculosis is given a minor place, although there is mounting evidence of its importance. Not withstanding the convincing experimental evidence of the role of the monocytes in resistance, this viewpoint is not unanimous. Some feel that those instances in which intracellular (as against humoral) destruction of the tubercle