130 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 



ignore the truth that any fact falsely classified is not only a 

 danger in practice but leads to false views with regard to 

 other sciences, to say nothing of the distrust of the teacher 

 evoked in the intelligent student who does not swallow 

 what is offered to him without producing an " anti- 

 body " to the professional " antigen." For such a student 

 may have acquired some smattering of colloids, and have 

 actually begun to see, as Moore wrote, that the pioneer 

 work of the French " had been burdened with the intoler- 

 able weight of a useless philosophy of jangling terms for 

 a type of reaction well known in colloidal chemistry." 

 It will probably be found that a dictionary containing the 

 common terms of chemistry and biochemistry is fully 

 sufficient for the reactions even of complicated colloids. 

 An obscure reaction is not explained by attributing it to an 

 imaginary substance with the very qualities which are the 

 subject of investigation. To invent one is to fall into the 

 error which Moliere satirized. To say all this is not to 

 belittle the magnificent practical results achieved by 

 bacteriologists. 



That the results of the search into the actual nature of 

 immunity have apparently been so barren and so con- 

 fusing, is, however, not due to want of suggestions which 

 might really work for simplicity. Yet, so far as I am aware, 

 Moore and Whitley's paper on a simple theory of immune 

 reactions has by no means had the attention it deserved. 

 Roughly speaking, their note put forward the view that 

 immune bodies were to be classed with catalysts ; the 

 substrate being the cell or bacterium to be dissolved, or the 

 toxin to be rendered inert, the " complement " various 

 bodies with which the toxin became chemically united, and 

 the immune body, or " antibody," the catalyst which 

 insured such chemical combination or dissolution, and 



