APPLICATION OF METHOD IN INFECTIOUS DISEASES I 



The following observation is important. If 

 albumen is injected into the circulation of an animal 

 for the first time, defensive ferments are found to 

 appear, in the case of intravenous injection, at the 

 end of about one day. If the injection is repeated, 

 say, a month after the defensive ferments have dis- 

 appeared, then the ferments reappear very much 

 earlier. (Abderhalden and Schiff.) May it not be 

 that immunity partly rests upon the fact that an 

 organism is able to set free its defensive ferments 

 quicker than usual ? 



Syphilis, also, may certainly be studied from the 

 standpoint we have laid down. We have to con- 

 sider the affected tissue on the one hand, and the 

 spirocha?te on the other, as substrates. 



It is also clear that' we may suspect the presence, 

 in the serum, of defensive ferments which are able to 

 reduce fats, carbohydrates, nucleo-proteids, c. The 

 demonstration of proteolytic defensive ferments repre- 

 sents only one special case. We have selected this 

 case because, up to the present, no methods exist for 

 satisfactorily demonstrating lipolytic or amylolytic 

 ferments in short, those ferments which are directed 

 against the particular constituents we have mentioned 

 -unless one has rather large quantities of serum at 

 one's disposal. We are, meanwhile, engaged in 

 extending our researches to other ferments. 



With regard to the infectious diseases, we should 



