THE SCIENCE AND ART OF PROTEAL THERAPY 179 



quantity of meat ingested and the length of time that had elapsed 

 since the organism had been habitually invaded by this partic- 

 ular protein. It is consonant with the Proteomorphic concep- 

 tion to assume that even when the beef protein-products entered 

 the blood at the polypeptid stage, they would act as antigens 

 directly stimulating the mother-cells of the erythrocytes and the 

 enzymic response of the erythrocytes themselves provided al- 

 ways that these cells were not sated by habitual presence of 

 these particular proteins. 



Should intestinal digestion be so perfect that all the beef pro- 

 tein is reduced to the amino-acid stage before passing into the 

 parenteral system, there would no such antigenic effect nor, 

 in all probability, would purin bodies be included; but there is 

 reason to believe that enteric digestion seldom is so perfect as 

 this particularly in case of persons of rheumatoid diathesis, 

 since they, almost by definition, suffer from intestinal toxaemia. 

 Indeed, as was earlier pointed out, it is not quite certain that 

 the proteins do not normally enter the blood as polypeptids. 



Such, then, is the theoretical reasoning through which I find 

 warrant for the practice of admonishing my patients rheuma- 

 toid, anaemic, cancerous, tubercular to regard an occasional, but 

 not too frequent, infraction of the purin-free diet rule as a 

 part of the rule. The radical distinction between such occasional 

 indulgence and habitual ingestion of the purin-bearing proteins 

 will be obvious to any one who recalls the oft-reiterated prin- 

 ciple that an incessant stimulus from the constant invasion of a 

 protein of any type leads to the corpuscular exhaustion implied 

 in what has been repeatedly spoken of (though perhaps the 

 phrase in this connection is not very defensible) as immunization 

 to the effects of a given protein. 



Incidentally it may be noted that the utter satiety that attends 

 the too continuous ingestion of a single type of foodstuffs is thus 

 to be explained. So far as I am aware, no other really intelligible 

 explanation of this anomaly has hitherto been forthcoming. The 

 oft-cited paradox (doubtless not literally true, yet symbolizing 

 a profound dietetic truth) that no one can eat a quail a day 

 for thirty days without utter satiety, thus finds scientific elu- 

 cidation, 



PROTEALS IN THE HANDS OF THE PRACTITIONER 



All this, however, is carrying us afield from the question of 

 the treatment of rheumatoid conditions with Proteals though, 

 after all, not far afield, as will appear when an explanation of 

 the action of the Proteals in this connection is given a little 

 later. First, however, it will be well, as establishing the prac- 



