x PREFACE 



bacterial agent if a toxin, to produce an antitoxin if a chemical, to 

 introduce a neutralizing substance. We see at once that in so far as 

 the causes of inflammation may be unlimited, so our specific agents 

 would have to be unlimited. 



The alternative lies in the endeavor to alter the inflammatory re- 

 action of the body itself. We may seek to augment its natural course, 

 hastening autolysis and resorption, or attempt the reverse, retarding 

 autolysis and stimulating the reparative phases, as we may wish. This 

 is a true "ergotropie," as v. Groer has termed it, a therapeusis whereby 

 we alter the reaction of the organism to the etiologic agent, rather than 

 endeavoring to influence the causative factor of the inflammatory 

 process directly. Such a therapy must of necessity be nonspecific in 

 the immunological sense. 



Perhaps it will be well to make clear at the very beginning that 

 the nonspecific reaction brings into play no new and heretofore un- 

 known factors of resistance. It deals largely with reactions previously 

 studied and which have always been employed by the organism in 

 overcoming disease, with or without our conscious interference. It 

 does deal, however, with the stimulation of these forces and when skill- 

 fully invoked brings to bear a summation of the varied measures of 

 defense of which the organism is possessed. It is quite probable 

 that these potential forces may have been latent or held in abeyance 

 until the nonspecific reaction brings them into activity. It has been 

 observed that the antibodies (agglutinins, precipitins, opsonins, etc.) 

 are "shed" or cast off from the cells after a nonspecific injection; so, 

 too, fibrinogen and thrombokinase are increased and a variety of 

 enzymes are poured out from the cells into the circulation. 



If nonspecific therapy is after all merely a method that deals 

 with heretofore known reactions we must be prepared to accept the 

 probability that it obeys all the commonly observed laws of biologic 

 reactions. If we regard it as a method of stimulation plasma activa- 

 tion it follows that it can only be effective when the protoplasm is 

 still in fit condition to respond to stimulation. Once the stage of ex- 

 haustion has been reached the mere irritation of the nonspecific agent 

 is no longer able to bring about any alteration in the disease process 

 other than an aggravation. 



The observations that have been made the basis of this monograph 

 have been gathered partly at first hand, both clinically and ex- 

 perimentally, more largely from a survey ^of such literature as the 

 exigencies of the war have made available to me. The summarizing of 

 our present knowledge in this particular field has seemed of some pos- 

 sible value, not with the idea of popularizing a new therapeutic meas- 

 ure but rather in stimulating interest in a direction that seems to 

 offer decided possibilities of advance. I have therefore merely indi- 

 cated some of the methods at present employed in nonspecific therapy 

 without effort to define precise modes of application or indications for 



