322 SYMBIOGENESIS 



that the mob hated them as it now hates the Jews in Eastern 

 Europe, because they were more frugal, more industrious, and 

 lived better lives than their neighbours. 



Evidently the study of history without physiology is as 

 fallacious as that of physiology without (its) history. Of the 

 Roman legionaires, at any rate, it must be said that they relied 

 for their stamina mainly on frumentum (frummety or firmitry 

 as the country people call it), much the same as the Scotch used 

 to rely on oatmeal, the Irish on potatoes, the Easterns on rice, 

 the Manchurians on the soya bean, the Arabs on dates, the 

 Kaffirs on mealies. 



If over-cultivated plants, such as strawberries and 

 asparagus (which are "forced" and over-manured [poisoned] 

 and therefore reduced in symbiogenetic capacity) can cause 

 obvious morbid symptoms, how far more risky must it be to 

 ingest animal food many degrees further removed from all ties 

 of biological reciprocity than is even such plant-food? That 

 the injurious effects of in-feeding are not so acute in their 

 symptoms as those of the anaphylactic shock has its reason, as 

 we have seen, in that they are in part remedied by the 

 beneficence of the digestive process and in part also converted 

 pathogenetically. 



" Probably all idiosyncrasies depend upon anaphylaxis," 

 i.e., as I would say, all reactions coming under this head so far 

 from being mysterious are in reality due to a long-standing 

 poisoning of the body. 



It is when we come to " chronic anaphylaxis " that we find 

 permanent injuries caused by poisonings and mutilations 

 becoming very apparent : 



The essential character of the anaphylactic reaction is its rapid 

 disappearance. One of two things happens: either the animal dies in 

 one or two hours at the most, or it definitely survives. At least this 

 is what seems to occur in guinea-pigs and rabbits when the exciting 

 injection is made with a slightly toxic and almost harmless substance, 

 like an heterogeneous serum. But, in dogs treated with toxins in second 

 injection, although the second injection be a dose well below the fatal 



