THE SCIENCE AND ART OF PROTEAL THERAPY 219 



intractable. When he has seen the blood count in an anaemic 

 patient change more radically after a week or ten days of treat- 

 ment than he would otherwise have been able to change 

 it in as many months, he will come to recognize the Proteals as 

 indispensable additions to his equipment, compared with which 

 the entire list of specific serums and vaccines have minor sig- 

 nificance. 



In speaking thus, I have no intention to disparage the value 

 of specific serums and vaccines. I have been from the outset 

 an enthusiastic advocate of these methods. I have only in mind 

 the thought that the diseases to which they are applicable are 

 relatively rare; whereas the maladies herein under considera- 

 tion, as associated with disturbed protein metabolism and more 

 or less amenable to Proteal medication, are so prevalent that 

 they claim by death three-quarters of a million individuals in 

 the United States each year. I think it is not quixotic to express 

 the belief that a more intelligent application of dietetics com- 

 bined with the rational use of Proteal therapy may modify very 

 conspicuously the mortality statistics of the not-distant future. 



I bring this outline of the development and present status of 

 protein therapy to a close with a full sense of the inadequacy of 

 the presentation that has been given. I have not so much as 

 referred to the recent literature that shows how actively the 

 minds of many physicians in various parts of the world are 

 turning toward the subject. My intention throughout has been 

 to give a resume of the pioneer work in this field; my own 

 experience and the experience of co-operating physicians still 

 constituting, no doubt, by far the largest body of evidence in 

 existence as to the therapeutic use of non-specific proteantigens. 

 It suffices to say that the reports that have come from a number 

 of independent workers in this country and in Europe during 

 recent months, although covering only a part of the field of our 

 researches, have been singularly corroborative of our results. In 

 particular, the work of Miiller and Thanner and their associates 

 in Berlin in the use of milk protein and an "albumose prepara- 

 tion" in the treatment of infective maladies of the eye, including 

 those of syphilitic, of rheumatic, and of gonorrheal origin, have 

 peculiar interest. Such extensions of the method will excite 

 no surprise in any one who has grasped the principles of the 

 therapeutic action of the proteantigens, as originally detailed in 

 my paper of October 2, 1915, and as elaborated throughout this 

 book. Disturbed protein metabolism underlies a great variety 

 of maladies, particularly in middle life and old age ; and, as my 

 original presentation stated, protein therapy is directed "against 

 all protein infections." 



Even where the infection is specifically bacterial there is 



