THE PROTEIN RESPONSE INTERPRETED 249 



the source of intestinal putrefactions. There is theoretical war- 

 rant, according to the Proteomorphic theory, for the assumption 

 of the less toxicity of vegetable proteins, in the fact that they 

 doubtless have constituted the food of our ancestors for a much 

 longer period than have animal proteins. Probably the remote 

 ancestors of men were eaters of vegetables for millions of genera- 

 tions before they became eaters of animal foods. And, according 

 to the thesis under discussion, the toxicity of any type of protein 

 is directly proportional to the newness, so to speak, or the in fre- 

 quency with which the organism has come in contact with it. 

 Toxicity is not a thing per se, but a matter of relativity. In- 

 herently, all proteins are poisonous to every organism except the 

 one producing them. A few drops of eel's blood injected into 

 the veins of a dog will cause death. 



Doubtless there is great diversity among vegetable proteins 

 themselves as to the matter of toxicity ; but the ones actually in- 

 troduced are of a type to produce a minimum of toxicity while at 

 the same time acting as vigorous antigens, stimulating the cyto- 

 genic mechanisms to the rapid production of white and red blood 

 corpuscles. Doubtless these corpuscles proteolyze the vegetable 

 protein itself, but in so doing the red corpuscles are not destroyed 

 in large numbers, because they have a minimum of toxic by- 

 products to deal with. 



The large mononuclear leucocytes, which have been shown to 

 produce enzymes that are peculiarly active in the splitting up of 

 cancer cells, are usually found to increase very markedly in the 

 blood. There is also increase of the lymphocytes, which are 

 credited with an active share in the splitting up of animal pro- 

 teins, and of the eosinophiles. The enzymes generated by these 

 protein fighters begin the disintegration of cancer cells (which, 

 because of their embryonic character, are more susceptible to dis- 

 integration than are the cells of normal tissue), and the products 

 of such disintegration are liberated into the blood stream, where 

 the red corpuscles, now banded in adequate numbers, continue 

 the work of proteolysis and elimination. 



Of course, the disintegrating cancer cells liberate toxic mole- 

 cules, and in dealing with these the red corpuscles are of neces- 

 sity destroyed in large numbers in the liver. But this temporary 

 reduction in the numbers of the erythrocytes is compensated 

 almost immediately by the stimulative effects of a succeeding 

 dose of protein, so that unless the breaking down of cancer 

 tissues goes forward very rapidly indeed, the aggregate count of 

 red cells increases from day to day. It is not unusual to find 

 the count above five million, after the treatment is well estab- 

 lished. The enzyme-forming capacity of the red cells is probably 

 increased proportionately. 



