82 POISONOUS PROTEINS 



constituent of the serum which is absorbed by 

 the agar or kaolin, (c) That the absorption of 

 some constituent of the serum by the agar, kao- 

 lin or bacteria leads to a disturbance of the 

 equilibrium of the protein constituents of the 

 serum which as a consequence break up with 

 the liberation of the poison. These suggestions 

 assume that the poison comes from the serum 

 and this may be true. ' ' On another page I said : 

 * i That the anaphylatoxin comes from the blood 

 serum, the one constant factor in all the experi- 

 ments in its production, is most probable." 

 Now since the probability has become a cer- 

 tainty, we need not conclude that specific pro- 

 teases never result from the parenteral intro- 

 duction of proteins. I have shown that all pro- 

 teins, including those of blood serum, contain a 

 poison and I am not at all surprised on learning 

 that such a poison in the serum is set free in the 

 production of Friedberger's anaphylatoxin and 

 in the development of Abderhalden 's preg- 

 nancy test, but these have nothing to do with 

 the development of proteases in smallpox or ty- 

 phoid fever. At least no such connection has 

 been shown. 



The Phenomena of Infection. 



I have elsewhere gone into some detail con- 

 cerning the views of the nature of infection 



