28 DEFENSIVE FERMENTS OF THE ANIMAL ORGANISM 



dialysation process, as well as in the optical method, 

 human organs may sometimes be replaced by those 

 of animals, might easily lead one to argue against 

 the existence of specifically constructed cell units, 

 as well as of the ferments that act on them. 



A special place is occupied, at least qualitatively, 

 by all those substances which, like the units of the 

 different organic nutritive and tissue materials as 

 well as the inorganic constituents, the salts, water, 

 &c. exhibit no specific structure, and which are 

 common to the most different kinds of cells, as well as 

 to the blood and lymph, as intermediate and final 

 products. In this case disturbances can only be 

 caused by quantities. Rapid secretion, or synthetic or 

 analytic processes, may in such cases act in a regu- 

 lating manner and again restore normal conditions. 

 All substances, however, which have a specific struc- 

 ture, are peculiar either to the blood or else to 

 specific cells. From this point of view we must con- 

 sider substances, which leave the cell and pass into 

 the blood in a state of insufficient decomposition, as 

 being out of harmony with the blood, or rather with 

 the plasma; and, inversely, disturbances would cer- 

 tainly occur in the metabolism of certain cells, if, for 

 instance, the insufficiently decomposed constituents 

 of muscle cells were to penetrate the cells of the 

 kidneys. The units of the muscle cells are out of 

 harmony with the cells of the kidneys, and only a 



