304 SYMB10GENES1S 



It is with disease and symbiosis, as it is indeed with might 

 and right : " C'est la force et le droit qui reglent toutes choses 

 dans le monde; la force en attendant le droit." 



What happens in the case of the body is that some of the 

 protoplasm of the neuron cell enters into a new chemical com- 

 bination with the poison (''nervous intoxication"), and that 

 the body is thus precariously stimulated to do new and 

 wonderful things ; amounting in essence, as I have said, to a 

 defensive symbiotic "elan," frequently of a revolutionary order. 

 Whatever the antigen injected may be, if the second dose is of 

 the same nature it induces anaphylactic symptoms, and these symptoms 

 are practically the same. Whether mytilo-congestine, suberitine, actino- 

 congestine, or crepitine be used, the same group of organic reactions 

 always appears, so that one is tempted to think that the same terminal 

 poison, apotoxin, is invariably produced. 



It seems equally clear that the identical reaction is 

 invariably produced. It is at any rate certain that in each 

 case a "nervous intoxication" is produced. It is possible to 

 " suppress " nervous intoxication, for instance, by means of 

 anesthetics. But if the protoplasmic reaction to a poison is 

 thus suppressed we must suspect that the case really becomes 

 more aggravated, and that the poison remains to undermine 

 the constitution in other ways. The case recalls the loss of an 

 organ of sense, say smell. Nasty smells do not apparently 

 affect a person so afflicted, but the power of protection and of 

 warning normally afforded by the power of becoming 

 "sensitised" by nasty smells is gone and the liability of the 

 person to disease is in reality increased, and the individual 

 may be severely handicapped in life, through the suppression 

 of its power of reaction in that particular direction. 



The same argument, viz., that an interference with the 

 general integrity of the body must lay it open to fresh dangers 

 may be said to apply to the following of Prof. Richet's 

 remarks : 



The blood certainly undergoes important chemical changes; but 

 their nature is unknown to us. We are only acquainted with ite morpho- 

 logical changes. 



