22 THE ACTION OF THE LIVING CELL 



which under normal conditions is held innocuously 

 within the cell. 



Without at the moment going into details, we must 

 note that since this substance is endocellular, cellular 

 disintegration or autolysis is a necessary prerequisite 

 for its release into the surrounding environment. With 

 this in mind, we may clearly understand the above- 

 quoted experimental results concerning traumatic 

 shock. Since, as is well recognized, tissue autolysis, 

 in common with other protolytic digestions, is a rela- 

 tively slow process, we are enabled to account for the 

 fact that the shock syndrome does not immediately 

 follow an injury, but, as a rule, becomes apparent only 

 after a lapse of some hours. 



The validity of the preceding argument is strik- 

 ingly proved by the following experiment. (Turck, 

 1918a.) Fresh muscle taken from a normal animal 

 was permitted to undergo aseptic autolysis until 

 microscopic examination revealed a loss of nuclear 

 staining. The autolyzed tissue was then ground in a 

 mortar with normal saline and the supernatant fluid 

 was injected intravenously into homologous animals. 

 Shortly after the injection of a small quantity of the 

 autolysate the animal passed into shock and eventu- 

 ally died. Increasing quantities of the autolysate 

 hastened the onset of shock and death. Indeed, a single 

 injection of a lethal quantity resulted in death within 

 three minutes. On the other hand when a saline ex- 

 tract of fresh tissue — i.e., before autolysis — is injected 

 in similar fashion, shock does not follow. These very 

 simple experiments show conclusively that autolysis 

 is a necessary prerequisite for the formation of the 

 toxic entity responsible for traumatic shock. 



