Infect Quotes (3 quotes)
I can think of a few microorganisms, possibly the tubercle bacillus, the syphilis spirochete, the malarial parasite, and a few others, that have a selective advantage in their ability to infect human beings, but there is nothing to be gained, in an evolutionary sense, by the capacity to cause illness or death. Pathogenicity may be something of a disadvantage for most microbes…
In 'Germs', The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974), 90.
In my opinion, the cholera poison only produces its effects through the air when carried by insects, or when the evacuations become dry, and are wafted as a fine dust.
In 'On the Mode of Communication of Cholera', The Edinburgh Medical Journal (Jan 1856), Vol. 1, No. 7, 669.
Through and through the world is infected with quantity: To talk sense is to talk quantities. It is not use saying the nation is large—How large? It is no use saying the radium is scarce—How scarce? You cannot evade quantity. You may fly to poetry and music, and quantity and number will face you in your rhythms and your octaves.
In 'The Aims of Education', The Aims of Education: & Other Essays (1917), 11.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
