DEFENSIVE FERMENTS OF THE ANIMAL ORGANISM 33 



the other hand, the decomposition of some dis- 

 harmonious, unsuitable, material may give rise to 

 some intermediate stages which are the cause of 

 serious disturbances. Here and there a cell would 

 be seriously injured. Complete disintegration could 

 never be effected, either because the cell would refuse 

 to act, or because it would lack the particular agent 

 with which to dissociate the compounds presented to 

 it. All this would lead to numerous possibilities, 

 which would exclude all regularity in the metabolism 

 of the cells, as well as in the general metabolism of 

 the body. 



The animal organism prevents all these possi- 

 bilities by allowing only material which has been put 

 in harmony with the body, and particularly the 

 plasma, to reach the circulation. The nutritive 

 material of the tissue cells, which from this point of 

 view can be considered homogeneous, gives decom- 

 position stages with which the cells have been long 

 familiar. Nothing that is disharmonious appears on 

 the scene. Just as in a workshop, in the production 

 of an article, one machine prepares the material for 

 another, and one workman transfers to another 

 material which is finished up to a certain degree, so 

 do the tissue cells mutually support each other in their 

 task. The cells of the gut and the liver continually act 

 as important sorters for the whole organism. One may 

 imagine the chaos and disturbance which would be 



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