788 INTERNAL SECRETIONS AND PRESERVATION OF LIFE. 



4- When a favorable reaction does not follow the use of saline 

 solution, it is because the adrenal system also requires direct stim- 

 ulation, such as that afforded by strychnine, digitalis, etc., admin- 

 istered subcutaneouslij. 



5. The use of saline solutions is also indicated in general or 

 local chronic diseases due to, or associated with, insufficiency of 

 the adrenal system. 



The pre-eminent part we ascribe to salt solution in the 

 preservation of the functional integrity of the cellular elements 

 and of the fluids by which they are surrounded becomes a nor- 

 mal consequence when, as suggested by modern cosmogony and 

 palaeontology, sustained by the teachings of comparative anat- 

 omy and embryology, the origin of cellular life is traced back 

 to the primitive seas. The many vestigial structures which 

 the human frame exhibits as relics of its evolutional past not 

 only include evidences of a primitive aquatic existence, the 

 embryonic branchial or gill- clefts and the pituitary bodies, for 

 instance; but the plasma in which all the cells of the organism 

 bathe may be said to also typify the original medium, and to 

 assert by its composition, its claim to recognition as a factor 

 of a problem which is destined to revolutionize every depart- 

 ment of human thought: i.e., the origin of species. At the 

 Thirteenth International Medical Congress, Rene Quinton 

 maintained that all aggregates of cells, such as those repre- 

 sented by our organs, were essentially colonies of marine cells, 

 which required as a sine qua non of their existence their original 

 environment. Sea-water, he also contended, differs little, if at 

 all, from the blood-plasma in composition. Our own labors 

 confirm this interpretation. Whether immersed in its primor- 

 dial fluid, as is the elementary marine cell, or traversed by its 

 prototype, the blood-plasma, as are the cellular colonies of 

 which all organs are built, matters little: All find in the saline 

 medium's constituents the agencies necessary to their continued 

 existence. Even the governing center of the adrenal system, 

 the anterior pituitary body, which differs from all other cellu- 

 lar aggregates and the elementary cell itself in that its func- 

 tional activity is upheld by a special agency, is dependent for the 

 latter upon a constituent of marine plants and sea-water: i.e., 

 iodine. 



