The article titled "Do More Infections Mean Less Asthma?" (SN, 8/26/00, p.134) suggests that exposure to microbes in early life helps develop a child's immune system. Speaking of dietary habits among 18th-century "Scotch-Irish" immigrants to the back-country regions of colonial America, David Hackett Fischer notes in Albion's Seed (1989, Oxford University Press): "The quality of... Read More