188 THEORETICAL DEDUCTIONS 



3. All and any medicines or methods of local or general 

 application which have shown themselves to be in any degree 

 efficacious in the treatment of these diseases, act fundamen- 

 tally through the nerve centers. The degree of their efficacy 

 depends on their greater or less selective action on a given 

 nerve center, or portion of nerve center. 



THE THEORIES OF IMMUNITY, OF ANAPHYLAXIS AND 

 OF ANTI- ANAPHYLAXIS. 



In order to understand the cause and the nature of the 

 reactions which an organism may or must undergo under 

 the influence of external agents, as well as the possible effect 

 of these reactions on its evolution, it is necessary to consider 

 the following: 



1. The essential physicochemical properties of living 

 matter. 



2. The structure of a living being. 



3. The general rules determining the nutrition of the 

 organism and of its component cells, or, in other words, 

 the conditions under which an organism can assimilate the 

 substances which it needs in order to keep its tissues living 

 and multiplying and to furnish energy to perform its work. 



Without going into too great detail our knowledge today 

 may be summarized as follows: 



Living matter as found in the cells of all living beings, is 

 made of albuminoid substances of which the composition 

 and the physicochemical properties are very uniform. 



Albumins are combinations of four elements (C, H, O, N) 

 in fairly constant proportions, and of a dozen other elements 

 in varying proportions. They form colloidal complexes, or 

 "micelles," of w T hich the constitution and intimate structure 

 are unknown. 



All that one does know at the present time on this point 

 is that living albuminous "micelles'' are complexes main- 

 taining themselves at a certain constant state of physico- 

 chemical equilibrium, by drawing from their surrounding 

 medium the substances of which they are composed and 

 which they assimilate; and by eliminating the useless waste 



