THE WAR WITHIN US

By: Cedric Mims

The author says about his book: It can be tiresome to be told something one already knows and equally tiresome to be expected to know what one does not know. There is no solution to this, and I can do no more than mention the problem as I chart a course through Nature’s ways. In making the intricacies of the immune system and infectious diseases less baffling to the general reader I have had to simplify, filter the facts, and give phenomena a purpose. I make no apologies for this. Nor do I apologize for taking the reader some way into the intricacies of modern immunology; and the first three parts of the book
are especially for those who like to know how and why.
Tales of wonder bugs, wonderdrugs, death, and contagion are regular news items, and we have all suffered from and been vaccinated against infectious diseases, but there is widespread ignorance about such matters. We do not need to know how a car or a television set works when we use it, but I believe that some understanding of how the body responds to microbial invaders is worthwhile. After all, it happens inside every one of us, regularly, and is a personal, intimate affair. Surely we owe it to our own bodies to be interested?

The book discusses biological warfare as well as the effects that it has on humans.