26 THE PROTEOMORPHIC THEORY AND THE NEW MEDICINE 



reader, and preparing him better to follow the detailed argu- 

 ment to which the ensuing hundred pages or so are devoted. 

 The essentials of the theory, then, are the following: 



1. The chief immunizing mechanism of the body is the cyto- 

 genic mechanism, of which the recognized members are the bone 

 marrow, the spleen, and the lymphatic system. The active agents 

 through which the process of immunization is carried out are the 

 leucocytes and red blood corpuscles generated in the various 

 organs of this system. 



2. The prime function of the leucocyte, after it becomes a 

 freely moving cell, is to facilitate and complete protein cleavage 

 or digestion, preparing for assimilation (to the limit of its ca- 

 pacity) all foreign proteins that enter the blood stream. In pur- 

 suance of this function, it is provided with digestive enzymes, 

 and with a mechanism for the production of special types of pro- 

 teolytes to cleave an endless variety of protein molecules, and 

 to counteract toxic proteins or enzymes due to bacterial activities. 



It is believed that, generally speaking, the eosinophiles and 

 large monocytes deal with the protein molecule unbroken or at 

 an early stage of hydrolysis ; the small lymphocytes and polynu- 

 clears with intermediate and later stages of hydrolysis; their 

 functions, however, more or less overlapping, and their aggregate 

 activities carrying the invading protein to the polypeptid stage 

 of decompounding. 



3. The red blood corpuscle completes the hydrolysis of poly- 

 peptid and allied protein products that find their way into the 

 blood stream. It absorbs or counteracts the toxic residual mole- 

 cules that are not completely hydrolyzed ; and it antagonizes the 

 products of bacterial activity, producing antitoxins. When ulti- 

 mately autolyzed or destroyed, chiefly in the liver, it gives its 

 protein and enzymes to the blood stream, and its waste products 

 are discharged from the body through the bile duct and (in the 

 form of uric acid, urea, and creatinine) through the kidneys. 

 The functions of the red corpuscles in thus dealing with the end 

 products of protein hydrolysis (reducing polypeptids to ammo- 

 acids and residual products) is conceived to be of fundamental 

 importance, as indispensable as the function of carrying oxygen. 

 An important specific feature includes the oxidizing of the purin 

 bases to form uric acid, and the more or less complete transfor- 

 mation of the uric acid into urea. 



4. The chief work of synthesizing protein out of amino-acids 

 in the organism resides with the mother cells of the cytogenic 

 apparatus notably the bone marrow and the spleen. But the 

 cells of each specialized tissue muscles, brain, glands can on 

 occasion synthesize each its own special type of protein, utilizing 

 the amino-acid building materials. Each tissue can also, on occa- 



