A short course in infectious diseases.

[O]ur casual willingness to tolerate a septic underclass, so long as it remains insular and out of sight, is certain to hasten the rise of much more and much worse.

It occurs to us that there is an analogy between the insidious nature of AIDS described by Mr. Huber and the advance of Islam in the guise of "immigrants to the West who are eager to take on the responsibilities of citizenship and adapt to the requirements of their new homes."

The West is somnolent as to the presence and increase of both. Strong internal forces work to make matters of public health into constitutional "no go" areas, as our approach to the the AIDS-homosexual-drug user and drug-resistant tuberculosis-illegal immigration issues illustrates.

Deadly but slow-killing pathogens have the potential to spread and to avoid nimble pharmaceutical counterattack.

It remains to be seen whether societies under assault by the virulence of Islam can develop the legal, political, and military antibodies in time. The "boiling the frog" analogy is still the analogy of choice in our book.

"Germs and the City." By Peter W. Huber, City Journal, Spring 2007.