THE PROTEOLYTIC MECHANISM IN OPERATION 91 



dog's body was removed, there was increased proteid metabolism, 

 but no change in the carbon dioxide elimination. Some years 

 later Finkler, in Pfliiger's laboratory, withdrew one-third of the 

 total blood from a dog, thereby reducing the rapidity of blood- 

 flow in the femoral artery by one-half, without producing any 

 change in the quantity of oxygen absorbed or of carbon dioxide 

 exhaled. More recently Hawk and Gies have confirmed the 

 early experiments to the extent of showing that there is a higher 

 proteid metabolism after bloodletting. 



Such experiments are utterly disconcerting so long as we con- 

 sider the red blood corpuscle only as a carrier of oxygen. Note 

 the conditions : the blood is reduced in quantity even by a third, 

 the corpuscles being, of course, reduced proportionately. Yet 

 the absorption of oxygen and the giving out of carbon dioxide 

 are unmodified ; and, even more strange to relate according to 

 accepted physiological teaching the rate of proteid metabolism 

 is increased. 



There is nothing in the least anomalous about these phenomena, 

 however, if interpreted in the light of the Proteomorphic theory. 

 In this view, the mother cells that produce the red corpuscles, 

 together with those that produce the leucocytes, constitute the 

 great protein-synthesizing mechanism of the body. Out of the 

 amino-acids in the blood stream and lymph stream, according 

 to my belief, the mother cells of bone marrow and spleen and 

 lymph nodes build up protein of the specific types characteristic 

 of the particular organism, storing it hour by hour in the bodies 

 of unending series of offspring which we call leucocytes and red 

 blood corpuscles. The protein of their bodies will be ultimately 

 discharged into the blood stream, to make up the proteins (globu- 

 lin and albumin) of the serum, the great common food supply 

 for all the tissues, and an important source of energy for the 

 bodily activities. 



What, then, could be more natural than that when there is 

 5uch depletion of the ranks of the corpuscles through hemor- 

 rhage, the cytogenic mechanism should take on exceptional activ- 

 ity, in the effort to make amends for the loss? But, of course, 

 the bodies of the corpuscles, being themselves proteins, cannot be 

 built up without requisitioning a supply of protein-building mate- 

 rial and giving out a certain amount of left-over material as 

 nitrogenous waste. 



Hence the observed increase in the protein metabolism, after 

 severe hemorrhage which might, in the light of this theory, 

 have been predicted in advance of the experiment. As to the 

 lack of increase in oxygen intake and carbon dioxide outgo, that 

 only furnishes another piece of incidental evidence that no such 

 number of red blood corpuscles is necessary as that normally 



