THE PARENTERAL INTRODUCTION OF PROTEINS 363 



tion. In experimental acute nephritis of the type due to 

 uranium nitrate, the power of sensitization to egg albumen 

 is prolonged for twenty-four hours, and in the chromate 

 type for forty-eight hours, thus indicating that in nephritis 

 of the acute type at least, the elimination of a foreign protein 

 is delayed." 



In our opinion the possibility of harm coming to the 

 kidney or any other organ from the deposition of a foreign 

 protein in it is not due to any directly poisonous effect of 

 the foreign protein but to the liberation of the poisonous 

 group when the body cells become sensitized and split up 

 the foreign protein. 



Abderhalden 1 has shown by both dialysis and by the 

 polariscope that foreign proteins injected into animals are 

 digested by ferments. However, he does not find evidence 

 that specific proteolytic ferments are formed. Indeed, it 

 still remains a question whether the sensitizer leads to the 

 development of an entirely new ferment or causes the 

 common non-specific proteolytic ferment of the blood to 

 develop specific properties. We regard this question as 

 only of academic value. In either case the proteolytic 

 ferment becomes specific, whether formed by an altered 

 rearrangement in the molecules of the cells or by alteration 

 in the molecular structure of a non-specific proteolytic 

 ferment. Abderhalden believes that the ferment is always 

 present in the blood, and that it is a secretion of the leuko- 

 cytes. We agree with him insofar as the non-specific 

 proteolytic ferment of the blood is concerned. The blood 

 is a digestive fluid, but we believe that specific ferments 

 are developed in various fixed cells under the influence of 

 foreign proteins or sensitizers. Abderhalden holds that 

 the ferment is always present in the blood, and that the 

 ferment and the sensitizer may both be present as they 

 are on first injection, but that for the production of ana- 

 phylactic shock a third and unknown factor is necessary. 

 He seems to be influenced in this belief largely by the 



1 Schutzfermente, 1912. 



