AUTOTHERAPY. 
517 
We may assist in bringing about a natural cure, or, in other 
words, specific antibodies may be developed, by direct inoculation 
or by placing the autogenous toxic substances, developed during 
the course of the disease, directly into healthy tissues. This is 
the auto-therapeutic method of cure. The nascent toxic sub¬ 
stances developed during the course of the disease are the sub¬ 
stances nature uses in auto-inoculation and also 1 the substances 
used in auto-therapy. These nascent toxic substances are most 
potent and curative. Auto-therapy is the therapy that employs 
all of the autogenous nascent, toxic substances developed during 
the course of the disease against which the healthy tissues react 
in a curative manner. The reaction against these toxic sub¬ 
stances is the reaction against the disease. 
When any of the toxic substances developed during the 
course of the disease, as the bacterial toxic substance for example, 
has been changed (as by heat or when grown in culture media 
outside of the body tissues, or by time) its therapeutic value is 
lessened in proportion to the change that takes place in it by the 
various processes which it undergoes. 
Sir Almroth E. Wright likens disease to weeds in a garden, 
and the vaccine to the gardener. At times, the gardener has to 
weed the garden often before the weeds are all exterminated or 
destroyed. If a single root is left it may spring up and send out 
roots, and the gardener will have to go over and re-weed it again. 
Restoring normal conditions to the patient always has been 
and always will be the most important consideration. The patient 
seldom will refuse to' take anything, he can be made to under¬ 
stand will cure him. 
The opsonic index is liable to be misleading; the majority of 
authorities are now guided by the clinical symptoms of the patient 
as to the time when it is necessary to re-vaccinate. The clinical 
symptoms are a safe guide as to the time when it is necessary to 
directly inoculate or to re-auto-inoculate. Each toxic substance 
acts on the tissues of the body, in a manner peculiar to itself. Its 
action is different from that of any other toxic substance. To 
understand the action of the toxic substance of a disease, the dis¬ 
ease will have to be studied with this end in view. 
