158 THEORIES CONCERNING IMMUNITY 



The presence of an excess of antibody in the blood exposes 

 the organism to a more or less violent anaphylactic shock 

 whenever a new dose of antigen comes in contact with it. 



Symptoms are explained by the formation of a precipitate 

 which obstructs the capillaries and causes, in consequence, a 

 sudden break in the nutritive equilibrium in the cells of 

 various tissues, and especially in the cells of the nervous 

 system. 



The production of excess antibody results in hypertrophy 

 and in lesions of nearly all the organs the reactions of which 

 maintain the normal functions of the organism. 



We saw above (A. Petit and G. Loiseau) that horses 

 immunized against toxins or bacterial cultures show radical 

 changes and lesions in liver, kidney, spleen, endocrin glands, 

 hemolymphatic glands. Similar lesions are found in rabbits 

 injected with horse serum. 



These lesions of necessity depress the functions of these 

 organs; and it is solely in these more or less pronounced 

 depressions that the direct or indirect causes of the lesions 

 of skin, digestive apparatus, joints, lungs (asthma, emphy- 

 sema), nervous troubles (neurasthenia, cachexia, etc.) are 

 to be found. 



We are thus led quite naturally to assume that in all cases 

 of chronic disease of unknown origin, the primary cause of 

 the lesions and of the apparent symptoms must be looked for 

 in the anaphylactic state brought about by the antigen. 



Might it be possible to attribute the lesions observed at 

 autopsy to a direct toxic action of culture fluid ? 



This is hardly probable since immediately after the first 

 few small non-pathogenic injections, there is found in the 

 blood of animals so treated a much greater quantity of anti- 

 bodies than is needed to neutralize the injected doses of 

 bacterial poison. There is even less probability in the case 

 of rabbits injected with horse serum, which properly speak- 

 ing, is not a poison. 



A harmful action is certainly present since the organism 

 sooner or later becomes ill. There is a breakdown of the 

 physicochemical and therefore vital equilibrium of the 

 affected cell; but this breakdown of equilibrium results not 



