"It may be so;" I admitted, and went on reading, while Kennedy scratched away diligently on his lecture. I mention this conversation both because it bears on my story, by a rather peculiar coincidence, and because it showed me a new side of Kennedy's amazing researches. He was as much interested in bacteria as in chemistry, and the story is one of bacteria.英文原著 · 《The Silent Bullet》
In short, our sires and our grandsires abode in the midst of perils. They were surrounded on all sides by things that are immediately fatal to the human system. Not a single one of them had a right to pass his second birthday. In the light of what we know, we realize that by now this world should be but a barren waste dotted at frequent intervals with large graveyards and populated only by a few dispossessed and hungry bacteria, hanging over the cemetery fence singing: Driven From Home!英文原著 · 《Speaking of Operations》
We must believe that a similar adaptive response exists in all parasitic infections--the cycles varying according to the stages in the development of the invaders. If the bacteria develop continuously, the fever is constant instead of intermittent, since the adequate stimulus is constantly present.英文原著 · 《The Origin and Nature of Emotions》
In fever, then, we have diminished intake of energy, but an increased output of energy--hence the available potential energy in the body is rapidly consumed. This may be an adaptation for the purpose of breaking up the foreign protein molecules composing the bacteria. Thus the body may be purified by a chemical combustion so furious that frequently the host itself is destroyed. The problems of immunity are not considered here.英文原著 · 《The Origin and Nature of Emotions》
Kennedy was deeply immersed in writing a lecture on the chemical compositions of various bacterial toxins and antitoxins, a thing which was as unfamiliar to me as Kamchatka, but as familiar to Kennedy as Broadway and Forty-second Street.英文原著 · 《The Silent Bullet》
"First, I wish it clearly understood that I believe in nothing. I do not even give the nothing I believe a name; or I should be an atheist. I have never had inside my head so much as a hint of heaven and hell. I think it most likely we are worms in the mud; but I happen to be sorry for the other worms under the wheel. And I happen myself to be a sort of worm that turns when he can. If I care nothing for piety, I care less for poetry. I'm not like Ashe here, who is crammed with criminology, but has all sorts of other culture as well. I know nothing about culture, except bacteria culture.英文原著 · 《The Trees of Pride》