THE ACTION OF ANTITOXIC SERUM. 749 



an internal secretion, are continuously produced in excess, the 

 former only burning up what fibrinogen is formed by the small 

 contingent of available leucocytes, and the protective destruc- 

 tion of bacteria, toxins, catabolic products, etc., being corre- 

 spondingly reduced. But heat-energy is a measurable quantity, 

 and that produced through the combination of fibrinogen and 

 the oxidizing substance can only enhance the activity of a pro- 

 portionally limited amount of trypsin, thus leaving a surplus 

 which accumulates in the blood-stream. The blood of a 

 typhoid-fever case thus contains a proportion of trypsin which 

 no other disease (owing to the absence of lesions of the lym- 

 phatic follicles and particularly of the agminated follicles or 

 Peyer's patches) shows, and in Widal's test trypsin acts upon 

 the bacilli when added to a culture precisely as trypsin does 

 upon any albuminoid body extra corpore. The movements of 

 the germs cease as soon as their surface is being softened by 

 the trypsin; this softening causes this surface to become adhe- 

 sive, and they therefore adhere to one another: i.e., become 

 agglutinated, forming "clumps." 



While further indicating the great value of Widal's re- 

 action as a diagnostic feature, it seems evident to us that, if 

 the general frame-work of our conception of all the physiolog- 

 ical and pathological phenomena involved did not rest upon a 

 solid foundation, it could hardly be accounted for without 

 indulging in hypothetical conjectures. Again, if the entire 

 field of the physio-chemistry of the blood is scrutinized, as we 

 have done, it will be found that the only agency that it could 

 contain to which this action upon bacteria and other albu- 

 minoid bodies could be ascribed is trypsin. It seems to us, 

 therefore, that we can confidently conclude that: 



Trypsin is the dominant active principle of antitoxin. 



THE UNIFORMITY OF ALL ANTITOXIC SEKA. This deduc- 

 tion involves another which tends greatly to simplify the entire 

 problem of serum-therapy, both as to the production of serum 

 and its use in disease. We have fully shown, we believe, the 

 relationship between the adrenal system and poisons. That a 

 poison capable of stimulating the anterior pituitary body always 

 gives rise to the excessive production of the oxidizing substance, 

 trypsin, and leucocytes, when the organs represented are nor- 



