36 DEFENSIVE FERMENTS OF THE ANIMAL ORGANISM 



gland, the accessory thyroids, the sexual glands, 

 the suprarenal bodies, and so on, we get definite 

 degenerative phenomena appearing. In many in- 

 stances, indeed, the absence of these organs is 

 incompatible with life itself. The same phenomenon 

 manifests itself when the organ is left in its proper 

 place, but through some cause or other gradually 

 discontinues its proper functions. In such cases 

 there is no need for the organ to be destroyed ; it is 

 sufficient if the production of a specific secretion 

 entirely ceases, a condition which is equivalent, to a 

 certain extent, to the complete absence of the organ. 

 These observations, which are supplied to us by 

 pathology, together with facts which may be produced 

 at any time as when we extirpate certain organs 

 and, after the results of such extirpation have mani- 

 fested themselves, make a fresh transplantation- 

 give an extremely varied picture of the reciprocal 

 relations of the different organs towards each other. 

 Each group of cells each organ has certain func- 

 tions to fufil in regard to the rest of the cell organiza- 

 tion, and in this respect it possesses a certain inde- 

 pendence of its own. There are also, of course, 

 reciprocal relations within the cells themselves of an 

 organ. Many observations point to the possibility 

 that apparent morphological unity of an organ does 

 not always mean unity of function. The independence 

 of a given organ is only a relative one. As we have 



