242 SYMBIOGENESIS 



mild (similar, but reduced or reversed) stimulations (like 

 those of plant-food itself) appealed to the pioneers of 

 Homoeopathy. How far these stimulations are justified in 

 every individual case, and how far they require to be comple- 

 mented by a well-balanced (cross-feeding) dietary, in order to 

 produce permanent good effects, of course remains to be seen in 

 every case. The real aim of therapeutics must always be to 

 effect a physiological re-conversion and not merely a suppres- 

 sion of symptoms. 



J. A. Handy, Ph.C., B.S., Phar.M., whom I have already 

 quoted, is of opinion that if the physician can control nutrition 

 he can control disease. (Scientific American, 31/10/14.) 



It is significant in this connection that, as pointed out by 

 Prof. Schiifer at the International Medical Congress, London, 

 1913, the important internal secretions of the body, which are 

 now being more Avidely studied, are in their action similar to 

 that produced by the active principles of drugs, " especially by 

 those of vegetable origin." 



Again this points to the fact that the vegetable kingdom is 

 the real source of all valuable stimulations, as it also 

 simultaneously provides the most valuable food substances and 

 the important connected principles. We have seen that Dr. 

 Funk regards the vitamines the subtle and highly complex 

 substances of vegetable origin indispensable to animal nutri- 

 tion as the mother-substances of ferments and hormones. 

 Again we may infer that the (symbiogenetic) evolution of the 

 glands concerned in animal metabolism was in great part due 

 to stimulations derived from vitamines, and that these glands 

 have specialised as storers of the valuable energies carried by 

 the vitamines. It was pointed out by Prof. Abderhalden 

 (Lancet, 13/9/13), in his paper on the formation of specific 

 ferments which deal with toxic substances in the blood, that 

 the presence of such ferments might be taken as demonstrating 

 the presence of the substance to which they corresponded. In 

 a similar way we may say that the presence of certain specific 

 glands, such as the thyroid and other ductless glands, to which 



