456 
The  Use  of  Drugs  in  Disease. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
July,  1920. 
tion,  is  injected  into  a  rabbit's  circulation,  in  two  intermittent  doses, 
very  minute  amounts  kill.  He  says:  "One  fifty-thousandth  of  a 
cubic  centimeter  of  a  solution  containing  but  one-millionth  of  a  gram 
of  protein  (egg  albumin)  sensitizes  fatally."  (Oct.  20,  1908,  p.  456.) 
That  certainly  beats  strychnine.  When  these  food  substances  are 
taken  by  the  mouth  the  digestive  fluids  convert  them  into  amino 
acids  that  are  perfectly  harmless.  If  they  enter  the  circulation 
partly  digested  fatal  results  occur  from  what  is  technically  known  as 
anaphylaxis.  It  is  now  believed  that  all  the  various  symptoms  of 
different  kinds  of  diseases  are  due  to  the  anaphylactic  poisoning  of  the 
body  substances  by  the  dead  parasites  that  are  being  digested  in  the 
blood  stream.  A  poison  is,  so  far  as  we  at  present  know,  a  substance 
that  has  an  affinity  for  some  of  a  cell's  molecules  and  that  by  union 
with  such  molecules  produces  fatal  disturbances  in  metabolism. 
The  cells  are  all  surrounded  by  specific  membranes  composed,  as 
now  believed,  of  protein-like  substances.  Injury  to  these,  by  union 
with  chemicals  that  damage  their  function,  alters  their  semi-per- 
meability and  leads  to  cell-death.  Egg-white  is  broken  up  in  the 
circulation  into  relatively  large  molecules  of  what  we  may  call  poly- 
peptids  and  these  have  different  affinities  for  different  cells  but  are 
too  large  in  size  to  take  a  proper  place  in  metabolic  changes.  They 
act  like  a  monkey  wrench  thrown  between  the  cog-wheels  of  a  machine. 
Meat,  when  partly  broken  up,  has  an  affinity  for  a  different  set  of 
cells  from  that  chosen  by  egg-white  fragments.  Fish  has  still 
another  set  of  such  affinities.  The  proteins  of  microbes  have,  under 
the  same  circumstances,  still  other  attractions  for  different  cells 
and  each  kind  of  microbe  poisons,  with  its  protein  fragments,  different 
kinds  of  body  cells.  Hence  different  diseases  display  different 
symptoms.  These  microbe  proteins,  so  far  as  we  know,  behave, 
when  fully  digested,  exactly  as  do  meats,  fish,  and  eggs — they 
nourish  our  bodies.  Only  at  a  certain  stage  of  partial  digestion  are 
they  poisonous.  The  most  deadly  toxins  of  disease  have  been  fed 
to  animals  by  the  mouth,  in  relatively  large  amounts,  without  a 
sign  of  poisoning.  They  are  digested  into  harmless  and  nourishing 
amino  acids.  The  toxins  of  botulism  is  an  exception  that  is  probably 
composed  of  molecules  sufficiently  small  to  be  able  to  pass  into  the 
circulation  undigested  and,  therefore,  able  to  produce  anaphylactic 
poisoning.  The  deadly  cyanogen  glucosides  behave  in  a  similar 
manner  to  proteins  but  they  are  not  digested  by  the  enzymes  of  the 
blood   if   introduced   hypodermically.    In   the   alimentary  track 
