134 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 



milk. Before such a reaction occurs the whole of the 

 food products in the milk are not utilized. The com- 

 plementary or combining bodies in oxidation and hydro- 

 lytic processes are O and H 2 0, and in all enzyme action 

 there is a natural " complement." In the production of 

 special immunities due to infection it is difficult to discover 

 the combining body, although in most acute infections 

 it may be lipoid in nature, as is certainly suggested by the 

 rapid consumption of fats in fevers. Yet in diseases such 

 as typhoid, in which emaciation is not rapid, this does 

 not appear to be the case. The combining body in this 

 case may not be a lipoid but an albumenoid, and perhaps 

 the special one found in Peyer's Patches, where ulceration 

 takes place, is most exposed to be used as complement. 

 In many cases of sudden and extreme weakness with a 

 high febrile reaction, it may be suggested that the infection 

 is proteolytic. It thus appears as if future treatment 

 may not only include the provocation of the special catalyst, 

 but the early supply of a definite complement by injection 

 or in the food. In most infections it is probable that 

 what can be most easily spared goes first. It is possible 

 that the combining body is always what the bacteria 

 would naturally feed on, which may serve to explain 

 latent periods and the slow onset of fever in many cases. 



What, then, is the action of the catalyst ? It must 

 be that it builds up in the bacterium a stable compound, 

 and so destroys the labile organism that takes in com- 

 plement as food, or that it neutralizes the toxins as they 

 are produced. Or it may so completely alter the combin- 

 ing body that the bacterium starves. As regards " free 

 toxins," the catalyst fulfils an obvious function by its 

 usual machinery. I suggest that the greatest function 

 of the many attributed to the phagocytes is not their 



