310 SYMBIOGENESIS 



We have seen that wrong feeding in man and beast leads 

 to " ammonisation " and impoverishment of the blood, to 

 numerous concomitant disturbances of function, to a super- 

 abundance of waste-matters, prone to quick decomposition, and 

 providing the soil for a pestiferous growth of a pathogenic 

 intestinal fauna and flora. Such vitiated "soil" reacts 

 unfavourably (through our manurial and pasturage system) 

 upon the microbic composition of the agricultural soil and, 

 hence, upon vegetation. The soil, infected and dyspeptic by 

 unclean alimentation, favours the virulent growth of patho- 

 genic at the expense of symbiotic and useful (nitrogen-fixing) 

 micro-organisms. The diathesis of man and his beasts thus 

 induces a vicious circle affecting the soil-flora, the soil-fauna, 

 and, in turn, his own species. 



Our water-supply likewise, for the same reasons, occa- 

 sionally becomes poisoned with the result of various diseases 

 and epidemics. Our own wars very "terrible medicine " for 

 our biological transgressions produce depopulation, which 

 means throwing land out of cultivation.* Uncultured land 

 breeds disease, and this in turn causes further depopulation. 

 " The land is defiled by iniquity and it vomiteth out her 

 inhabitants." It all goes to show, again, that we "sensitise" 

 and predispose ourselves for the gravest disorders by wrong 

 feeding and various concomitant remedial courses long before 

 we usually invoke "serum-therapy" which is beginning at 

 the end of the problem. Nor is it by any means that the blame 

 rests mainly with our physicians. And this brings us back to 

 the consideration of anaphylaxis. 



We have seen that it is a biological adequacy the 

 symbiogenetic use which must qualify the use of colloids 

 and, for the matter of that, of all food substances. 



The very fact that among definitely crystal lisable 

 substances certain vegetable alkaloids, such as quinine and 

 antipirin, form exceptions and sometimes do produce 



* The view expressed in some quarters that wars often are due to a kind of collec- 

 tive fallacy if not a collective insanity seems indeed amply justified. 



