104 THE PROTEOMORPHIC THEORY AND THE NEW MEDICINE 



services may have been available, even though the injection was 

 not made directly into the blood stream. 



Again in Sir Almroth Wright's application of vaccine therapy 

 to localized infections already in being, such as boils, and even 

 to general infections, including typhoid fever, the injection is 

 usually subcutaneous or intramuscular, not intravenous, but it 

 is obvious that the leucocytes residing at the moment in the 

 static tissue fluids and lymph spaces are brought directly into 

 contact with the invading bacteria (in this case dead, but laden 

 with their foreign proteid). They are seen to accumulate and 

 to attack the dead bacilli actively, and we can hardly doubt that 

 they are directly stimulated to send out antidotes complement, 

 opsonin, bacteriolysin that presently percolate into the general 

 blood stream and are carried to the special tissues where the 

 invasion of living germs is taking place. 



In this case the locally injected germs are unquestionably at- 

 tacked and largely engulfed by the local garrisons of leucocytes, 

 and it is difficult to conceive what other agent can be responsible 

 for the secretion of the antibodies with which the blood presently 

 becomes infused. 



Although it seems almost unavoidable to conclude, in such a 

 case as this, that the white blood corpuscle is the agent of anti- 

 body production, where protein poisons are in question, yet the 

 conclusion, after all, is inferential only. Some remarkable ex- 

 periments have recently been made by J. W. Vaughan, however, 

 in which the genesis of specific enzymes in the body of the leuco- 

 cytes in response to protein poisoning, is demonstrated. 



In these experiments, as recorded by Victor C. Vaughan, the 

 inoculation of sheep or rabbits with finely ground cancer tissue 

 led to the rapid increase of large mononuclear leucocytes in the 

 blood, until they reached twenty-five per cent, or more of the 

 entire leucocytic population. The animal is then bled, the blood 

 is laked with acetic acid, and the leucocytes are collected in a 

 centrifuge. They are rubbed with sterile sand in salt solution 

 and passed through a Berkefeld filter. 



It is found then that the filtrate contains the specific proteolytic 

 ferment which splits up cancer cells. 



"This is shown by incubating it with cancer cells, when the 

 poisonous portion of the protein molecule is freed, as is shown 

 by the fact that when injected in the fresh rabbit it causes sud- 

 den death. Incubated with other proteins, the leucocytic extract 

 liberates no poison. This leucocyte extract when injected in 

 certain amount directly into cancer tissue produces anaphylac- 

 tic shock." 



The experiment led the elder Vaughan to conclude that "this 

 work seems to indicate that the specific enzyme for cancer cells 



