40 THE PROTEOM'ORPH c THEORY AND THE NEW MEDICINE 



going autolysis outside the body may have far less enzymic 

 activity than they would exhibit under normal conditions. But 

 in addition to this it should be observed that the amount of goat 

 serum introduced in these experiments was enormously large as 

 contrasted with any doses of foreign protein administered thera- 

 peutically to the human subject, amounting, in fact, to one per 

 cent, of the rabbit's blood. Assuming that the goat serum com- 

 prises at least 20 per cent, of proteins, the amount of foreign 

 protein thus introduced would constitute one-fifth of one per 

 cent, of the total bulk of the rabbit's blood. 



That the corpuscles of the rabbit's blood were able to absorb 

 at least 50 per cent, of this shows remarkable capacity on the 

 part of the corpuscles for handling foreign proteins that invade 

 the medium in which they lie. 



As a still further anticipation of matter to be discussed in 

 detail later, it may be noted that the normal proteals under 

 consideration in this book contain only 3 mgm. of nitrogen to 

 the cubic centimeter, or the equivalent of less than 2 per cent, 

 of vegetable proteins. Meantime the amount of this 2 per cent, 

 solution of proteins used in a hypodermic dose is only one or 

 two cubic centimeters, as a rule ; and almost never more than 3 

 or 4 cubic centimeters. Such a dose, introduced into the large 

 quantity of blood in the human body, obviously constitutes an 

 infinitesimal protein intrusion in comparison with the one per 

 cent, of goat serum mixed with the rabbit blood in the experi- 

 ments of Manwaring and Kusama. 



Since these experiments now give us an inkling of the capac- 

 ity of the blood corpuscle, the thought not unnaturally suggests 

 itself that possibly we have hitherto used proteals in much smaller 

 doses than might be permissible or advantageous. Here, ob- 

 viously, is an interesting field for future experimentation, in 

 connection with cases that have proved intractable to the pro- 

 teal medication as hitherto administered. It must be recalled, 

 however, that it has been customary to carry the dosage to the 

 point of producing an anaphylactic response, and that with most 

 patients this is likely to occur with a dose of thirty minims or 

 less of a two per cent, protein solution. On the other hand, in 

 some early tests that antedated the beginning of proteal therapy, 

 an experimenter administered doses of one hundred cubic cen- 

 timeters of sheep-blood serum into the peritoneal cavity of a 

 cancer patient, with seemingly beneficial results. It is noteworthy 

 that the severity of the deferred anaphylactic reaction (including 

 chill) is by no means determined exclusively by the quantity of 

 protein administered. It has already been noted that proteins 

 to which the system has not been habituated, such as those of 

 alfalfa, produce relatively strong reactions. 



