FERMENT REACTIONS IN PATHOLOGICAL CONDITIONS 329 



FERMENT REACTIONS IN OTHER PATHOLOGICAL 

 CONDITIONS. 



Following the demonstration of the existence of placentolytic 

 ferments in the blood-serum of pregnant individuals, related fer- 

 ments have been sought and found under various pathological 

 conditions, and it would seem that any organic or even functional 

 disturbance of the body may lead to the appearance of corresponding 

 ferments in the blood. This discovery has opened up new avenues 

 of research in experimental medicine, and to judge from the work 

 already done "organ diagnosis" along these lines is certainly des- 

 tined to play a most important role in the future of clinical medi- 

 cine. Of special interest in this connection is the observation of 

 Fauser (which has since been confirmed by a number of other inves- 

 tigators) that in dementia precox, in contradistinction to the 

 other so-called functional psychoses, ferments appear in the blood 

 which react specifically w r ith sex gland proteins testicular tissue 

 in the male and ovarian tissue in the female. In addition the serum 

 of such cases frequently causes the cleavage of cortex and of Base- 

 dow thyroid. In Basedow's disease and curiously also in myx- 

 edema, ferments are quite constantly demonstrable which will 

 digest Basedow thyroid, thymus, occassionally sex gland, but rarely 

 normal thyroid, from which one would not unnaturally conclude 

 that in the diseases in question an abnormal internal secretion is 

 furnished by the gland, and that we are thus dealing with a dys- 

 thyroidism, irrespective of the question w r hether or not there are 

 quantitative changes in the activity of the gland. In diseases of 

 the liver further, ferments have been found w r hich reacted with 

 liver tissue, in pneumonia ferments which reacted with pneumonic 

 lung, in paresis ferments which reacted with cortex and liver, etc. 

 In malignant disease some writers claim to have obtained specific 

 reactions in carcinoma with carcinomatous tissue and in sarcoma 

 with sarcomatous tissue. My own results in this direction have 

 been less encouraging, and I cannot help but feel that some of the 

 startling announcements which have thus far been made, are not 

 always based upon faultless technique. In the earlier stages of my 

 own work in this direction I also obtained numerous positive reac- 

 tions in malignant cases, while at present negative results are the 



