APPLICATION OF METHOD IX INFECTIOUS DISEASES 123 



ponents can no longer be considered as supplying 

 nutritive material for the organism that lives in them. 

 The fact that the cells which are out of harmony 

 with the body are dependent upon nutritive material 

 of the most varied nature for the opportunity of ex- 

 tending their existence, and more particularly for 

 maintaining their species, gives us an insight into 

 the kind of influence exercised by these parasites on 

 the host. In the first place they may act injuriously 

 by the simple removal of nutritive substrates, while, 

 in addition, the preparatory decomposition of the 

 nutritive material may give rise to by-products which 

 are harmful to the organism. We can well imagine 

 that particular cells have ferments at their disposal, 

 which decompose particular substrates in a thoroughly 

 characteristic fashion, and so, for instance, produce 

 stages of decomposition which are quite out of 

 harmony with the cells of the host. The same sub- 

 strate may be decomposed in the most various 

 ways, right clown to its simplest structural units. 

 The idea of an atypic decomposition of substances in 

 harmony with the body, cells, and plasma, by fer- 

 ments of disharmonious cells, suggests the possibility 

 that micro-organisms, though not actually themselves 

 passing into the circulation substances that are 

 directly poisonous, may act injuriously, simply from 

 the fact that, by means of fermentative decomposi- 

 tions, they form products out of the material 



