308 Kansas Academy of Science. 



stance, which must prepare the microbe to be absorbed or taken 

 up. This newly apprehended idea, in its possible relations with 

 life, immediately added new stimulus and impetus to our study of 

 physical chemistry. We now discovered by experiment that a 

 temperature of 65° C. annuls this microbe-destroying capacity. If, 

 however, it was found, the microbes were incubated at a tempera- 

 ture approaching blood heat, and the temperature then raised to 

 65° C, the corpuscles would devour the microbes. Thus was it 

 clearly demonstrated that opsonin is a definite substance, because 

 it has a definite point of decomposition. 



Summarizing, now, the results just obtained with those already 

 well known to those that had previously dealt with the subject, we 

 now find the substance of the indicated facts and laws to be about 

 as follows: 



(a) Opsonin will unite with dead, innocuous microbes. 



(h) This union will stimulate the body cells to produce more 

 opsonin; in fact, an excess of opsonin. 



(c) The best agent for the enhancing of this action consists of 

 just the very cells of that microbe which we are seeking to destroy. 



(d) All bacilli stake their existence on this opsonian combat. 



III. RESULTS OF CATALYSIS UP TO A. D, 1900. 



In the making of his corpuscle-plus-plasma-'we/'sw^-microbe ex- 

 periments. Doctor Koch gave fatal doses to his "patients," because 

 unaware of the character of the phases produced, and ignorant of 

 the fact that the bacilli which he was attacking with such perse- 

 verance were really aiming, in their work, at the achieving of a 

 helpful product in the organisms which they were infecting. 

 ( This result they were, as we now know, unable to attain because 

 of the excretive paralyzers produced in their work.) 



At a later period Professor Wright proved beyond question that 

 the successful treatment of any localized disease must consist in 

 the inoculation of the menstra of the innocuous dead microbe 

 cells themselves. But he did not understand the nature of that 

 certain product toward which the tubercles were striving; nor did 

 he realize that the tubercles were inhibited from carrying forward 

 a helpful work for man by those very paralyzers which are an ob- 

 stinate concomitant of their struggle — paralyzers that are always 

 of a definite character, paralyzers which they are powerless to de- 

 stroy. 



In the pursuit of his experiments Professor Wright used doses 

 of but the one-thousandth part of a milligram. Thus he was able 

 to control all negative phases, and all phases of secondary occur- 



