30 PROTEIN THERAPY 



Esch considers the results obtained with organotherapy in men- 

 strual disturbances from the same point of view. As proof of the 

 plasmaactivation Borchardt brings a number of interesting experi- 

 ments. Using immunized rabbits he has found that the injection of 

 asthmolysin (0.0008 adrenalin and 0.04 infundibular extract), of 

 spermin and also of thyroid extract greatly increased the titer of the 

 immune bodies in the serum. The thyroid extract was active even 

 when given by mouth. As a result of his experiments he considers 

 any of these agents useful in the infectious diseases, 



THE VACCINES 



Before taking up the question of the use of vaccines in produc- 

 ing a nonspecific response it may be well to quote briefly from a re- 

 cent paper of Wright. Inasmuch as Wright has done more than any 

 other immunologist to emphasize the factor of strict specificity in 

 vaccine therapy, introduced the method of estimating such specific re- 

 sponse on the part of the patient by means of the opsonic index, 

 recommended the use of autogenous vaccines, etc., it is but fitting 

 to record his present attitude. 



"Let me start quite at the beginning. Long after the principle of pro- 

 phylactic inoculation had established itself in medicine, it was accepted 

 that to inoculate microbes into the already infected system would be 

 as illogical as to instill further poison into an already poisoned system. 

 Pasteur was the first to teach, us here a distinction. He pointed out, in 

 connection with immunization against rabies, that a vaccine might legiti- 

 mately come into application in the incubation period. That was the be- 

 ginning of therapeutic immunization; and from that time forth it was 

 recognized that you may legitimately inoculate in the incubation stage, 

 and try to get in advance of the infection. But it was in everybody's 

 mind that immunization took 10 days to establish itself. When I showed 

 in connection with antityphoid inoculation that bactericidal substances 

 were very rapidly elaborated, it became plain that this involved shifting 

 the old landmarks and taking in further territory for therapeutic immuni- 

 zation, and one had to ask oneself all sorts of penetrating questions. One 

 had to ask oneself in connection with 'generalized infections' at what par- 

 ticular stage of the infection one was to regard the body as overmastered 

 by the bacterial poison, and incapable of further immunizing response. 

 Again, in connection with 'localized infections' one had to inquire whether 

 they should not be envisaged as general infections indefinitely arrested 

 in their incubation stage, and whether they might not, in consonance 

 with that, be brought within the sphere of inoculation. 



"Further consideration suggested that the problem of therapeutic in- 

 oculation can be approached also from a point of view different from that 

 taken up by Pasteur. With respect to immunizing response, the body had 

 been visualized as a single and undivided unit. That is clearly erroneous. 

 One region of the body may be making immunizing response while the 

 other is inactive. For instance, in the stage of incubation it is presumably 



