When such antibodies have been synthesized and are present, the subject is said to have an immunity against a given antigen. When antibodies rally to overcome disease -causing disease-causing invaders, the patient survives. But when the antigens win the battle and overwhelm the defenses of the individual, death results.
A primitive level of viral engineering was already developing specific disease-causing viruses that can control crop-damaging insects or be used as innocuous competitors of natural pathogens (disease-causing organisms). (See Year in Review: AGRICULTURE.) For higher organisms there was as yet no clue as to how to find a specific gene on an intact chromosome of a given cell and replace it with another. Finding the correct one ten-millionth of the total DNA seemed an implausible aim. Because a wide margin of error would be intolerable, direct viral engineering of the human merited little discussion.
Thyrotoxic Heart Disease. Thyrotoxicosis is a condition caused by oversecretion by an enlarged thyroid gland; it sometimes affects the functioning of the heart. Exophthalmic goiter causing thyro-toxicosis was responsible for 3% of the 3,000 cardiovascular cases analyzed in New England by T. Duckett Jones and Paul Dudley White in the 1920's. That was before any cure for the disease was known. Later, when surgical operations and drug therapy, especially the use of radioactive iodine, were introduced, thyrotoxicosis was quickly treated and cured.
When such antibodies have been synthesized and are present, the subject is said to have an immunity against a given antigen. When antibodies rally to overcome disease -causing disease-causing invaders, the patient survives. But when the antigens win the battle and overwhelm the defenses of the individual, death results.