Tuberculosis and Genius

IN a letter to the "'British Medical Journal'' of September 10, 1921, 'Mr. S. T. Irwin dealt with the relation between chroniic infections and mental activity. He stated: "Many substances, toxic in large doses, act merely as stimulanits when adnministered in normal amounts. If wte assumne that, in a case of moderate tuberculous infectioni, small amounts of tuberculini are bein,,constantlNabsorbed into the circulation, the effect would be a mild but frequently recurring stimulationi of the brain, and the brilliance of the after-dinnier speaker proclucedl, -with this clifference, however, that instead of spasmodic results the effect would be continuous." It is initeresting to reflect that all life oni this plainet cani only exist within a very narrow range of temperature:"WNithinl a few degrees of the lonlg scale Ranging frormi measured zero to uniInagiined hleat; A little oasis of life in Nature's (lesert.''