THE PROTEOMORPHIC THEORY 

 AND THE NEW MEDICINE 



CHAPTER I 



THE MECHANISM OF PROTEIN HYDROLYSIS AND 

 IMMUNIZATION 



The main theses of the Proteomorphic Theory are these : That 

 the mechanism which gives the human organism partial or com- 

 plete immunity against bacterial disease comprises what may be 

 called the cytogenic or haematopoietic system including lym- 

 phatics, bone marrow, and spleen with its daughter cells the 

 white and red blood corpuscles as its active agents, and with the 

 liver as the excretory organ of the waste products incidental 

 to the immunizing process; and that the same mechanism deals 

 with all foreign proteins in the parenteral system; the case of 

 the bacteria being only a special case within the general law of 

 protein hydrolysis.. 



The white corpuscles are believed to begin hydrolysis of foreign 

 protein, and the red corpuscles to complete the decompounding 

 from the polypeptid stage, liberating amino-acids, and dealing also 

 with residual end products of the zanthin-uric acid-urea series. 

 Sundry antibodies of the general character of enzymes are coin- 

 cidentally developed, their individual qualities being determined 

 in response to the specific nature of the invading protein, bac- 

 terial or non-bacterial. 



The theory assumes that the entire cellular system of the 

 organism viscera, muscles, brain may be considered as a sec- 

 ondary apparatus, standing as it were in the background, ready 

 to supplement the work of the chief immunizing agents. So 

 general an implication as the latter may seem to savor of the 

 nature of a truism ; but it will appear that the theory ascribes a 

 specific and definite part in the immunizing process to the body- 

 cells in general and in particular, attempting to trace the precise 

 rationale of their activity. Equally specific is the interpretation 

 of the activities of the leucocytes and the red blood corpuscles, 

 which are posited as the chief and controling mechanism in the 

 process of protein hydrolysis in general and immunization in 

 particular. 



It will be well here at the outset to present a summary of the 

 chief tenets of the theory, by way of orienting the mind of the 



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