THEORY OF CURATIVE REACTIONS 111 



THEORY OF CURATIVE REACTIONS. KENDALL'S 

 EXPERIMENT. 



How then may we explain the nature as well as the 

 mechanism of these curative reactions? 



In order to answer these questions we must remember 

 that: 



1. Every normal or abnormal function of an organ, a 

 gland or a tissue depends on the central nervous system, so 

 that all the modifications of the physiological equilibrium of 

 a cell may be caused or arrested by the direct or reflex action 

 of the nervous centers. 



2. Whatever be the cause of a lesion or of a functional 

 disturbance of an organism, the pathologic symptom will 

 be always caused by a nervous reaction. 



3. Each functional disturbance of a cell can be but the 

 rupture of the nutritive and respiratory equilibrium of this 

 cell. 



In this way, an emotion causes in certain people enteritis, 

 dermatosis or an attack of asthma. This means that certain 

 psychic centers have reacted on the trophic centers of the 

 bulb, that their excitation has interfered with the capillary 

 circulation of the intestinal or pulmonary mucosa or of the 

 skin. 



It is therefore in the excitation of the nervous centers 

 that the initial cause of the disease must be looked for; it is 

 likewise the nervous centers which prepare the lesions and 

 which set off pathologic symptoms through the reflex action 

 of the lesions. 



In many other more numerous cases, the initial cause of 

 the disease is an agent which is exterior to the organism: a 

 poison, an antigen or a traumatism. It is this agent which 

 disturbs the nutritive equilibrium of the cells and which 

 thus prepares the lesions; but the maintenance of these 

 lesions and the reactions causative of pathologic symptoms 

 are still governed by the nerve centers. 



To make this argument more plain let us suppose the pres- 

 ence of a stone in the gall-duct. The stone manifests itself 

 by violent pains, because the walls of the canal contract 

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