204 THE PROTEOMORPHIC THEORY AND THE NEW MEDICINE 



ent conditions (though I venture to doubt if the latter ever 

 exists without having been preceded by the former), yet the 

 effects on the blood and on the system at large of protein prod- 

 ucts absorbed through the intestines and of those liberated from 

 cancer tissue may be substantially identical. (The high glutamic 

 acid contents of tumors is worth recalling in this connection.) 

 It is an observed fact that many diverse conditions, including 

 intestinal toxaemia, tuberculosis, and cancer, may bring the blood 

 to seemingly the same stage of abnormality, characterized by 

 red cells reduced in number and of the pernicious anaemia type, 

 and by leucocytes increased in number by way of compensation, 

 with relative neutrophilia. It is not strange, then, that the same 

 line of treatment may be applicable to all these conditions and 

 to numerous other conditions similarity characterized by dis- 

 turbed protein metabolism since the fundamental maladjust- 

 ments are the same in all. 



If a fairly satisfactory explanation may thus be found of 

 the increase of red corpuscles and the decrease of leucocytes 

 under Proteal treatment, as in the case above cited, it must be 

 admitted that an explanation of the striking modification of the 

 differential leucocyte count is not so readily forthcoming. 

 Nevertheless, it is possible to offer at least a provisional explana- 

 tion, along the lines of an hypothesis of differential leucocyte 

 action presented in an earlier section. In examing this hypothe- 

 sis, we shall have occasion to consider the blood modifications 

 in an interesting case of leukaemia, already once or twice referred 

 to. For the moment, however, attention is directed to the modi- 

 fied leucocyte count in the case of anaemia already discussed. 

 It will be recalled that the polynuclears at the outset numbered 

 70.6 per cent of the total leucocyte ; and that after a few days' 

 treatment their proportion was reduced to 51 per cent. Mean- 

 time, the small lymphocytes had increased from 21.6 per cent, to 

 35 per cent., and the large mononuclears from 5.4 per cent, to 

 14 per cent. 



This would appear to tell either of a disproportionate destruc- 

 tion of mononuclears or of a no less disproportionate production 

 of mononuclears. And the problem thus presented does not 

 apply to this case merely, for I have posited a similar modification 

 of the differential count as a characteristic response to protean- 

 tigen treatment. Reference to this has been made many times 

 in the preceding pages ; and tables demonstrating the modification 

 in series of cases are presented in the cancer Monograph. What 

 is the explanation of this modification? 



Perhaps the simplest explanation of the change of polynuclears 

 would be that the hydrolytic function of this type of leucocyte 

 is most directly compensatory of that of the red corpuscles. It 



