PATHOGENES1S 285 



extrusions have to be resorted to at the expense of vitality and 

 of symbiogenesis. 



All these considerations, I submit, are of the utmost 

 importance in their application to a phenomenon taken from 

 the sphere of acute disease, which is now in more than one 

 sense "acute," and occupies the minds of many of the fore- 

 most biological and medical investigators, viz., that of 

 anaphylaxis, or serum-disease. 



One of the principal investigators of anaphylaxis is Prof. 

 Ch. Richet, whose book on the subject has been translated into 

 English by Dr. J. Murray Bligh. 



The book, according to Dr. T. R. Bradshaw, is "a clear 

 and able exposition of certain striking, often alarming, 

 phenomena which, in the opinion of the author and of others 

 who have worked on similar lines, may be expected to follow 

 the introduction into the organism, at long intervals, of succes- 

 sive doses of albuminous substances such as are employed in 

 some of the modern methods of treatment (by serum)." 



Anaphylaxis, says Prof. Richet, is the opposite condition 

 to protection (phylaxis), and he " coined the word in 1902 to 

 describe the peculiar attribute which certain poisons possess of 

 increasing instead of diminishing the sensitivity to their 

 action." 



Further in his second chapter he says : 



As a result of the injection of a toxic substance into several animals 

 of the same species a variable and individual effect can always be demon- 

 strated. Some are very resistant, others intensely sensitive. 



Similarly in the case of ingestion of certain foods : 

 It has long been known that some people after eating shell-fish, 

 mussels, or strawberries are liable to erythema, urticaria, and indigestion, 

 with nausea and syncope ; all these are phenomena having characteristics 

 strongly resembling those of anaphylaxis. In such people very small 

 quantities of the ingested substance produce marked symptoms, while 

 in the majority of people the results are those of normal food, and no 

 symptoms are produced. 



The fact of anaphylaxis by ingestion is definitely proven, 

 i.e., the ingestion of certain foods (particularly certain 



