Immunity might be putting it strongly. "Relatively highly resistant" is probably the case.
Obviously a person or group of people can "train" the body (it could be one person doing it, not a society; in fact, most of the cases below are of one person). However, this modifies the basic, already given biological makeup. I can teach myself to hold my breath underwater a long time. I cannot teach myself to hold my breath underwater forever. (Although it would be awesome if I could -- I loved Man from Atlantis.)
Something else I can't do? Make myself immune to fire.
--- On Fri, 6/12/09, Dennis Claxton <ddclaxton at earthlink.net> wrote:
> From: Dennis Claxton <ddclaxton at earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Kenneally, some notes and background
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org, lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Friday, June 12, 2009, 7:01 PM
> At 03:34 PM 6/12/2009, Michael Smith
> wrote:
>
>
> > Large quantities of arsenic will kill you. Is this
> environmentally
> > determined? Or determined by some complicated
> intersection of biological
> > and social factors? In what society has it ever not
> been true? In what
> > future society might it not be true?
>
>
> Arsenic is one of the most toxic elements that can be
> found. However, regular
> ingestion of small amounts of arsenic can eventually allow
> the body to tolerate quite
> large doses. The villagers in an isolated region of Chile
> are immune to arsenic
> because their water supply contains 600 ppm of arsenic, and
> they show no signs of
> arsenic-related diseases.
>
>
> https://www.wlu.ca/documents/14614/CH226_Lecture18.pdf
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=j-Xu07p3cKwC&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=%22immune+to+arsenic%22&source=bl&ots=lsPZkBa0Op&sig=--7FcmoMMexDwskkvrIVqcd7WMM&hl=en&ei=TtsySve_M6XYswPJ5OHpBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7
>
>
> Human immunity against snake venoms is one of the oldest
> forms of vaccinology to date (about AD 60, Psylli Tribe).
> Since then many humans and tribes have attempted to immunize
> with snake venom to achieve immunity [3] Charles Tanner and
> Herschel Flowers were studied with dried snake venom and
> achieved strong immunity(1).Joel La Rocque self injected
> Eastern diamondback venom and developed a high IgG
> neutralizing antibody for several rattlesnake species.Harold
> Mierkey has done so for years. Tim Friede was studied twice
> with a self-directed vaccine experiment using pure venom and
> achieved very high IgG neutralizing antibodies with mamba
> and cobra venom(1). The present goal is to develop a
> DNA-based vaccine for the Old World using the genes that
> encode the venom with an electroporation device for DNA
> delivery(1). If successful, some of the over 100,000 people
> that die from snakebite in the Old World will be saved.
> (1,2)
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_venom
>
>
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>