748 INTERNAL SECRETIONS AND PRESERVATION OF LIFE. 



activity of the spleno-pancreatic system, and (3) secondary over 

 activity of the leucocytogenic structures, and that the trypsin 

 supplied to the blood-plasma originated from leucocytes, it 

 seems to us that we can legitimately conclude that: 



Bacilli, their toxins, and all other albuminoid poisons are 

 converted into benign products by the same agency, trypsin, both 

 in the leucocytes and in the blood-plasma. 



This conclusion, however, awakens a question as to the 

 manner in which antitoxic serum obtained from animals by 

 means of repeated and gradually increased doses of injected 

 toxins accumulates in the blood-stream. It would normally 

 seem that the adrenal system, stimulated by the poisons, should, 

 by loading the circulation with oxidizing substance, cause the 

 liberation of considerable heat-energy, and give rise to an in- 

 crease of the trypsin's activity sufficient to involve the destruc- 

 tion of all cellular elements. But we must not lose sight of 

 the fact that, while leucocytosis and a marked increase of tryp- 

 sin-production are caused by an excess of oxidizing substance 

 in the plasma, the leucocytes obtain from the intestinal canal 

 the necessary proteids to create not only fibrinogen, but also 

 the myosinogen, lecithin, hemoglobin, etc., required by the 

 organism's general routine work since we refer to presumably 

 healthy animals. The formation of fibrinogen is, therefore, 

 commensurate with the proportion of proteids ingested; and 

 the primary source of heat-energy, that with which the oxidiz- 

 ing substance combines, is thus only just sufficient to preserve 

 the blood's normal temperature. 



A proof of this is afforded by Widal's reaction. We have 

 shown that agglutination was a property of trypsin. Typhoid 

 fever we shall see in the next volume is essentially a disease 

 in which the absorption of proteids is inhibited mainly through 

 impaired leucocytogenesis, owing to disease of the intestinal 

 lymph-follicles: a fact itself demonstrated by the identity of 

 the disease as the only one among the greater febrile processes 

 in which, in cases following their regular course, the proportion 

 of leucocytes in the blood is decreased. As a result, the quan- 

 tity of fibrinogen in the blood-stream is limited in proportion 

 as the number of lymph-follicles involved is great. Neverthe- 

 less the oxidizing substance, an internal secretion, the trypsin, 



