132 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 



the same time of the natural sensitiveness or anaphylaxis. 

 In every case, for salts as well as colloids, the differences and 

 the same contrasts in the reactions (nutritive, immunizing 

 or pathogenic) will be determined by the proportion of the 

 reacting substances. 



A pathogenic bacterium will naturally obey the same 

 general biochemical law as any other cell in order to nourish 

 itself in the interior of the organism to which it has pene- 

 trated. If by its albumins or by its secretions, it is antigenic 

 for the cells of the organism the albumins or secretions of 

 these latter are antigenic for it and like the organism the 

 bacterium will produce antibodies intra- and extracellular 

 against these antigens. At the same time it will become 

 more immune and more sensitive and whenever the organism 

 produces its antibodies more rapidly than the infecting 

 bacterium, the bacterium will succumb to anaphylaxis. It 

 will be autolized or surcharged with antibody or antigen 

 (sensitized) and will become the easy prey of phagocytes on 

 account of the phenomenon of positive chemotaxis of Charles 

 Bordet and Massart. In this way the conditions of normal 

 or pathologic nutrition of a "micelle" and in consequence of 

 the cell may be understood. 



In an organism composed of a combination of different 

 tissues, and of organs and glands with special functions, 

 reactions will obviously be much more complex. In these 

 cases a disturbance will never be strictly limited ; it will have 

 always multiple effects. The intervention of the liver, spleen, 

 suprarenal capsule, thyroid and parathyroid glands, hypo- 

 physis and especially the central nervous system may greatly 

 modify the rate of each reaction, and may infinitely compli- 

 cate the study of its mechanism. But whatever these com- 

 plications may be, whether the objective symptoms are 

 caused by a purely local reaction or whether caused by a 

 reflex action, it is impossible to imagine that any modifica- 

 tion whatever in the normal state of the organism could be 

 produced by anything other than a disturbance of the nutri- 

 tion of the "micelle"; in other words, by a modification of 

 the physicochemical equilibrium of the " micelles." 



