330 PROTEIN POISONS 



of typhoid fever are caused by the living bacilli. Now we 

 know that these lesions follow the intravenous injection 

 of dead proteins. As has been stated, each foreign protein 

 has its predilection tissue in which it is largely deposited, 

 whose cells it especially sensitizes, and where it is disrupted. 

 This explains the characteristic lesions and symptoms of 

 the different infectious diseases. Bacterial inflammation 

 is essentially a chemical process, or is due to the disruption 

 of cell molecules through the chemical affinity between 

 certain groups in the bacterial cell and certain groups in 

 the cell of the animal. So long as the bacterial cells are 

 alive the chemism that holds the living molecule together 

 tends to resist this process of disintegration. The patho- 

 genic bacterium assimilates the nutritious constituents 

 of the fluids of the animal body, builds them into its own 

 tissue, converts them into substances foreign to the host, 

 and finally, when the bacterial cell goes to pieces either 

 from spontaneous dissolution, or through the aggressive 

 action of some animal cell, these reconstructed chemical 

 groups are set free and poison the animal, inducing lesions 

 in various tissues, and, in many instances, so interrupting 

 the vital functions as to cause death. It is in harmony with 

 these statements that Friedberger has been able to induce 

 aseptic pneumonia by spraying horse serum into the lungs 

 of guinea-pigs sensitized with the same, and Schittenhelm 

 and Weichardt have established "enteritis anaphylactica" 

 by the reinjection of egg-white into sensitized dogs. It 

 is more than probable that cholera infantum and the kindred 

 summer diarrheas result from the absorption of undigested 

 milk and consequent sensitization. The designation " protein 

 diseases" might be used to cover the majority of bacterial 

 and protozoal diseases, and many of these hitherto regarded 

 as autogenous. 



7. It seems to be a physiological law that the specific 

 ferments elaborated by living cells are determined by the 

 proteins brought into contact with them, but as yet we 

 know but little concerning these bodies which we call 

 ferments. That they are labile chemical bodies resulting 



