EPILOGUE 221 



malaria is treated with quinine, atabrine, and plasmochine. 

 These drugs and some related ones are weapons which 

 strike at the cause of the infectious disease; they are com- 

 paratively harmless to the body, but some poisonous side- 

 action always remains. Nevertheless these poisons must 

 be administered, since the damage and danger caused by 

 the infection is greater than that caused by the drug. The 

 ideal internal disinfectant which would kill only the virus 

 and never damage the body has not yet been found. 



Another aspect of the medical treatment in infectious 

 diseases is to bind the poison produced by the enzymatic 

 action of the virus in the body. For this purpose, anti- 

 toxins are prepared from the blood of infected animals. 

 St ill another task is to replenish those body hormones which 

 have been destroyed by virus activity. 



Since nearly all drugs which are now in common use have 

 been introduced by the trial and error method it remains 

 for science to form a clear conception of their mode of action 

 according to the principles explained. We are led to as- 

 sume an interference with an enzyme action as the common 

 cause of many drug actions, but, of course, this statement is 

 too vague. For more specific information we may deter- 

 mine the location of action of any definite drug; in fact many 

 of them act exclusively upon certain organs. But even 

 this information is rather indefinite since it remains to 

 determine by what mechanism a drug acts on the organ in 

 question. All we can do is to point to the exceedingly small 

 amount in which many drugs act, which fact is suggestive 

 of the possibility of an interference with enzyme actions. 

 Thus, for instance, the homeopathic remedies are particu- 

 larly noted for the low doses in which they are administered. 

 But they are not the only ones to which our enzymatic 

 theory might be applicable. 



These are just a few examples which serve to illustrate 

 the practical importance of scientific progress even if it 



