TOXINS AND ANTITOXINS. 23 



the plasmatic principles, to the cells; of their 

 transformation within the interior of the cells, 

 and finally the rejection of all the matter that 

 could not be utilized. It is the nervous system 

 that commands or dominates this mechanism, that 

 controls the taking-up of assimilable elements and 

 the elimination of toxic principles, the fruit of 

 assimilation or disassimilation, and in such a man- 

 ner, in fact, that this same nervous system can, 

 at its will, cause starvation, or intoxicate. 



The marvelous cures obtained by magnetic 

 methods are due to no other causes than favor- 

 able changes in the nervous system. 



General Mode of Action. — The toxins, of whatever 

 kind, always behave like diastases, in the sense 

 that their definite action appears to be absolutely 

 independent of their mass, and that imponderable 

 quantities suffice to cause serious morbid affections 

 and profound modifications in nutrition. 



Koch has shown that tuberculin is capable of affect- 

 ing 60 trillion times its weight of the living human 

 being. According to Vaillard one milligramme of 

 tetanus toxin will kill a horse weighing 600 kilos. 

 These two examples show what an enormous power 

 the toxins possess. 



My views regarding the manner in which dias- 

 tases act I have developed at length in my work 

 Nature des Diastases. The close analogy between 

 these substances and the toxins, an analogy upon 



