THE PROTEOLYTIC MECHANISM IN OPERATION 83 



the patient suffers from protein end product absorption a com- 

 mon and characteristic form of intestinal toxaemia. 



In a typical case of this description recently under my obser- 

 vation, the patient is a youth of eighteen, with no pronounced 

 clinical symptoms other than habitual constipation and suscepti- 

 bility to infection ("catches cold" readily; has occasional crops 

 of boils). Pulse 68; blood pressure, 120-80; haemoglobin, 85-90. 

 The white corpuscles numbered 6,400, and on the smear ap- 

 peared normal purple and showed no tendency to clump. Red 

 corpuscles, 5,608,000, largely checkered and vacuolated when 

 fresh in (diluted) Toisson solution; platelets fairly numerous. 

 After three hours ninety per cent, shriveled, spiny, more or less 

 distorted (a condition I am accustomed to refer to in my labora- 

 tory notes as the "sea urchin" effect) ; so small as to show pro- 

 nounced Brownian movement. 



Closely similar blood conditions are often found in patients 

 suffering from chronic arthritis. This is not the place, how- 

 ever, to discuss in further detail the pathological and clinical 

 bearings of the implied disturbances of the erythrocytic func- 

 tion of ultimate protein hydrolysis. That observation of the 

 corpuscles in this connection have practical bearing on problems 

 of disturbed digestion and assimilation clinically spoken of as 

 autointoxication and intestinal toxaemia, will be obvious. Full 

 discussion of the phenomena in question, with particular refer- 

 ence to acidosis and the rheumatoid condition, will be given in a 

 subsequent chapter. 



THE PHENOMENA OF ANAPHYLAXIS 



But suppose now that the protein that enters the blood stream, 

 instead of being the product of a familiar foodstuff is a protein 

 of an unusual type that is to say, one that the organism does 

 not habitually ingest. Or suppose that the protein, although of 

 a familiar type, is introduced in rather large quantities. In either 

 case complications arise; and these complications are precisely 

 similar in character in the two cases, being due in each case to 

 the inadequacy of the protective equipment, as will appear in a 

 moment. 



Illustrative cases in point are the laboratory experiments in 

 which a foreign protein is injected into the system of a rabbit 

 or guinea pig; and, in case of a human subject, those instances 

 in which proteids are ingested in great quantity and fail of nor- 

 mal complete digestion. 



In either case the phenomena may result that have become 

 more or less familiar under the name of anaphylaxis. It is a 

 condition of toxicity in which the symptoms clearly indicate in- 



