A Theory of Ferments and Their Action. 
33 
It is quite evident that the atoms can not recombine into sugar or into 
any substance whose molecular structure too nearly resembles sugar ; 
in fact, other things being equal, the less similarity in wave char- 
acters between ferment and the recombination products, the less 
will be the resistance to combination. Hence lines of least resistance 
are offered to substances whose wave periods are unlike those of the 
sugar in phase, and whose energy may be antagonistic to that of the 
yeast; such substances are necessarily antibodies which tend, through, 
inter ference^ to immunize the sugar against the yeast, by equalizing the 
forces of the two substances. 
The marked resemblance which the phenomena of fermentation bear 
to the phenomena of infection naturally inclines the mind to conclude 
that these analogies arise from a. similarity, or identity, in the nature 
and modus of the causes which underlie and determine both processes. 
The features which correlate the phenomena and their causes will ap- 
pear more clearly by comparing the phenomena and causes of alcoholic 
fermentation as given with those of diphtheria. Diphtheria is an in- 
fectious disease, caused indirectly by a pathogenic micro-organism — the 
diphtheria bacillus. When this bacillus is inoculated into a non-im- 
mune animal, or is grown in an artificial culture material, it develops 
a poisonous toxin — the diphtheria toxin — which is the essential cause 
of diphtheria. When the, toxin finds a vulnerable substrate (proteid 
molecules) in the blood and tissue juices of the animal — man and 
horsb — the substrate is decomposed, and the dissociated atoms of the 
substrate combine into antitoxin — a specific antibody — which neutralize 
the energy of the toxin, and cures the patient, How toxin occupies the 
relation to the diphtheritic process, that yeast ferment does to alcoholic 
fermentation^ one dissociates the vulnerable molecules of the blood 
serum, which recombine into a specific antibody-antitoxin; the other 
dissociates the vulnerable sugar atoms, which recombine into alcohol, 
etc. ; the alcohol is a specific antibody to the ferment-antiferment, while 
antitoxin is the specific antibody to diphtheria toxin-antitoxin. 
SPECIFIC ANTIBODIES. 
A development of specific antibodies as end products is a phenomenon 
that is by no means limited in its occurrence to the alcoholic fermen- 
tation in fermentative processes^ nor to the diphtheric infection in the 
infectious processes; on the contrary, it is a common feature of both 
fermentation and infection. Furthermore, a development of specific 
antibodies serves to distinguish the simple chemical reaction from the 
more complicated chemical plus ferment, and chemical plus pathogenic 
reactions. Besides, specific antibodies play an important role in im- 
