Am.  Jour.  Pharm. ) 
July,  1913.  J 
Phylacogens. 
307 
ciple  is  supported  by  an  extraordinary  practical  experience,  sup- 
plemented by  exhaustive  and  long-continued  laboratory  and  clinical 
experimental  work  by  Dr.  Schafer. 
Three  facts  are  set  forth  by  Dr.  Schafer  as  the  basis  of  this 
new  therapy. 
First:  Practically  all  acute  and  many  of  the  chronic  diseases 
are  caused  by  the  metabolic  products  of  pathogenic  bacteria. 
Second:  The  human  subject  is  the  host  of  micro-organisms 
that  are  pathologically  latent  but  capable  of  setting  up  a  disease 
process  under  certain  conditions. 
Third:  The  growth  of  infecting  micro-organisms  can  be  ar- 
rested and  their  effects  neutralized  by  products  derived  from  their 
development  in  artificial  culture  media. 
Dr.  Schafer  is  of  the  belief  that  all  infections  are  "  mixed 
infections,"  that  except  in  rare  instances  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  an  infection  by  a  single  species  of  micro-organism;  that  while 
one  species  may  predominate,  the  pathogenic  process  engendered 
by  it  is  accelerated  and  intensified  by  the  complicating  presence  of 
other  organisms  of  other  species :  in  other  words,  that  in  the  course 
of  an  infectious  disease  the  symptoms  are  due  not  only  to  the 
effects  of  a  single  species  of  organism  (the  specific  infection),  but 
to  the  influence  of  other  organisms  whose  pathologic  role  is  not 
insignificant,  but  which  must  be  reckoned  with  in  any  successful 
scheme  of  therapeutics. 
Dr.  Schafer  further  believes  that  the  human  subject  is  at  all 
times  the  host  of  a  great  variety  of  organisms  and  harbors  these 
pathogenic  bacteria  without  harm  to  itself  during  periods  of  phys- 
iological resistance,  at  or  above  par,  and  in  the  absence  of  any 
solution  of  tissue  continuity.  When  the  resistance  is  below  par, 
or  a  solution  of  continuity  of  tissue  occurs,  the  bacteria  harbored 
by  the  human  host  assume  pathological  significance. 
Furthermore,  he  contends  that  certain  diseases,  as  typhoid 
fever,  pneumonia,  tuberculosis,  erysipelas,  rheumatism,  and  others, 
are  objective  and  subjective  symptomatic  manifestations  of  the 
preponderance  in  the  patient  of  the  toxic  and  destructive  products 
of  the  peculiar  species  of  organisms  to  which  the  etiology  of  the 
disease  is  usually  ascribed,  as  B.  Typhosus  in  typhoid  fever,  D. 
Pneumonia?  in  pneumonia,  the  B.  Tuberculosis  in  tuberculosis,  etc. ; 
and,  in  addition,  the  symptoms  are  due  in  part  at  least  to  the 
destructive  action  of  certain  materials  produced  by  complicating 
