IMMUNIZING MEDICATION. 767 



in another volume. These features, however, do not modify the 

 position of the adrenal system in all processes connected with 

 immunity and, we may add, with the pathogenesis of all gen- 

 eral intoxications. Indeed, all the testimony and lines of 

 reasoning we have adduced seem to us to warrant the conclu- 

 sion that: 



The power of the organism to antagonize the constitutional 

 effects of pathogenic germs, their toxins, and other poisons, is di- 

 rectly proportionate, all else being equal, to the functional efficiency 

 of the adrenal system. 



IMMUNIZING MEDICATION. 



The foregoing conclusion obviously suggests that since cer- 

 tain remedies greatly increase, even when administered by the 

 mouth, the functional activity of the adrenal system, we might, 

 by the judicious use of such remedies, protect the organism 

 against pathogenic germs, their toxins, and all poisons that 

 the protective apparatus can overcome when its efficiency is 

 raised to its highest potential. In other words, it suggests 

 that, prior to exposure to infectious diseases or during epi- 

 demics, after injuries received in places thought to contain 

 tetanus saprophytes, after bites from presumably rabid animals 

 or from venomous animals, etc., we might be able to cause, 

 in our blood-stream, a sufficient accumulation of phagocytes, 

 trypsin, fibrinogen, and oxidizing substance to offset the life- 

 destroying tendency which all these bodies exhibit. The con- 

 tents of this entire work seems to us to sustain such a de- 

 duction. 



If we recall the energy with which certain agents: quinine, 

 for instance, force blood into the peripheral capillaries, by 

 causing contraction of the central vascular trunks and other 

 vessels supplied with muscular walls, it will become apparent 

 that the presence of this remedy in the blood not only excites 

 the adrenal system to unusual activity, but that the vast im- 

 munizing field of the organism is being utilized to destroy the 

 alkaloid. The headache and the superficial heat, the suffused 

 face, the hard pulse, etc., testify to this. But we are dealing 

 with an inoffensive agency, if properly used, and its value 

 as a prophylactic has been emphasized by those writers who 



