144 REVIEW OF RECENT RESEARCHES 



a rapid advance into unknown territory. There are 

 still many stages to go over again, before we can 

 arrive at a definite picture. A serological examina- 

 tion must be first employed, and the clinical 

 diagnosis, which is generally more uncertain, will 

 be compared with it. Often later observations alone 

 will show, whether the serological diagnosis is 

 really correct. It will be particularly necessary to 

 make our clinical description of individual cases as 

 thorough as possible. The serological diagnosis of 

 diseases of the nervous svstem will attain a oreat 



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measure of success, when it enables us to isolate 

 diseases, hitherto considered identical, according to 

 the presence of particular defensive ferments, and to 

 find that the clinical course of the disease corre- 

 sponds with this. In any event, each separate case 



must be carefullv and continuouslv studied. 



j 



Moreover, the above investigations are of special 

 importance for this reason, that they definitely indi- 

 cate the specific action of the defensive ferments. 

 Fauser and Wegener report that female patients 

 suffering from dementia prascox never decomposed 

 testes, but only ovaries. Conversely, males only 

 attack testicular tissue, but never the ovary. Both 

 authors have also experimented with placenta, and, 

 on the one hand, confirmed the sere-diagnosis of 



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pregnancy, and on the other showed that the male 

 serum never decomposes tissues of placenta. Of 



