Phylactery

“ Since physiological tests are, in many cases, much more sensitive than chemical tests, they have often been used for the identification of traces of poison isolated from a body. Thus a small quantity of a particular alkaloid will produce certain characteristic physiological results when injected into the circulatory system of a small animal, and should precisely the same results be obtained by the injection of the unknown substance, the obvious inference to be drawn is that the two substances are identical. ”

“ The more the biologist enlarges the limits of his researches, and the more he follows up all general phenomena, the more may he venture to hope that he will gain new means and new lines for the study of special processes. The appearance of the defensive ferments in the animal organism, when it is invaded by substances that are out of harmony either with its body, with its blood, or even with some of its cells, gives us an insight into many problems of pathology, and particularly into those of immunity. ”

“ If these views are correct, it should be possible to trace such substances as are in harmony with the body, but not with the blood and its plasma, by looking for definite ferments. It is quite conceivable that, in certain diseases, the cells only partially effect the decomposition of the nutritive material and of the constituents of the body, and that, to a certain extent, materials that are harmonious only with the cells are handed on to the lymph. ”

“ The fact that the animal organism replies to the invasion of disharmonious substances—which, either taking their origin from the metabolism of certain cells of its organs, or being normal constituents of the cells, pass directly into the blood plasma—by means of specifically directed ferments, is of the greatest importance to physiology as well as to pathology. ”

“ There is not the slightest doubt that the course of this metabolism, as well as the inter-relations of the cells of a particular organ, is only imaginable under the supposition that the metabolism of the whole organism is regulated in the most precise way, not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively. We are bound to imagine that, in the work of the cells, the same stages of decomposition recur regularly, and that it is at a quite definite stage that the by-products of metabolism are passed by the cells into the lymph channels, and so into the blood system. ”

“ Carpenter, "that the germs liberated by one plant are taken up by the roots of others, and being carried along the current of the sap, are deposited and developed, where vegetation is most active."
The chemical theory of disease would be better sustained by a comparison of "the artificial formation of alkaloids," and the phenomena of transformation of blood into the tissues of animals, and their degeneration into effete matters, and of sap into the tissues of plants and their degenerations. ”

“ Poisons in the Blood May Affect the Germ-Cells.—Any poisonous material in the latter might injuriously affect the gametes. We know, in fact, that such poisons as alcohol, lead and various drugs, and also the toxins of various diseases, do so affect germ-cells. It seems plausible to suppose that changing conditions of nutrition may affect the constitution of the [Pg 127] germ-cells and thus induce changes in the organism which arise from these cells, but such nutritional effect is not yet a matter of established fact. ”

“ To do this, he took some decaying animal or vegetable substance, such as urine, which is an extremely decomposable substance, or the juice of yeast, or perhaps some other artificial preparation, and filled a vessel having a long tubular neck with it. He then boiled the liquid and bent that long neck into an S shape or zig-zag, leaving it open at the end. The infusion then gave no trace of any appearance of spontaneous generation, however long it might be left, as all the germs in the air were deposited in the beginning of the bent neck. ”

“ Now, if in an animal organism the separate processes were not regulated in a very strict manner, and if, for instance, the blood did not receive substances which are in harmony with it, that is, always transformed in a definite and regular manner, it would be difficult for us to understand how the separate secretions always attain their aims in a very certain way, and how they are able locally to attack particular metabolisms, and either retard, or hasten, or initiate them. ”

“ It must be remembered that the effects of a morbid poison are never due to what first enters the system, but to the crop or progeny produced from this during a period of reproduction, termed the period of incubation; and if a whole sack of grain, or seed of any kind, were put into a hole in the ground, it is very doubtful whether any crop whatever would be produced. ”

“ If twice or doubly organized, beyond the plant form into the animal form, the combination becomes weaker for purposes of nutrition—the substances are far on their way back to the inorganic form and are heavily laden with the element and principle of decay: each mouthful of flesh, with its blood, containing wornout and broken-down cells—decomposed tissues—effete matter practicaly dead, inorganic and poisonous, and on its way to the lungs, skin, and kidneys for rejection. ”

“ This suggests the conclusion that quantitative internal changes in the cells, and with them disturbances in the degree of concentration, are induced, through which the chemical reactions are led in the direction of sexual reproduction. An increase in the production of organic substances in the presence of light, chiefly of the carbohydrates, with a simultaneous decrease in the amount of inorganic salts and water, are the cause of the disturbance and at the same time of the alteration in the direction of development. ”

“ But there are many other substances, some of them containing nitrogen, which are not in the least acted on by the secretion, and do not induce inflection for a longer time than do inorganic and insoluble objects. These unexciting and indigestible substances are, as far as I have observed, epidermic productions (such as bits of human nails, balls of hair, the quills of feathers) , fibro-elastic tissue, mucin, pepsin, urea, chitine, chlorophyll, cellulose, gun-cotton, fat, oil, and starch. ”

“ From the inattention of those who have written upon the subject, might it not be concluded, that there really is but one method of inoculating; or if more, that they are equally good? that, provided the variolous matter be inserted, and the small-pox conveyed, all the rest is of no consequence; and if the operation should be more or less successful, or even if fatal accidents should happen after it, that these effects are to be imputed to nature, to chance, to inoculation itself, but by no means to the particular method which has been followed? ”

“ Not only do certain known poisons circulating in the blood, or other fluid that may bathe the germ-cells of living creatures, profoundly affect the germ-cells, but many other substances probably have great influence upon them. ”

“ Any cause that lowers the vitality by depressing the [Pg 12] system, reduces the resistance to bacteria and is therefore apt to favor their growth. Exhausting diseases such as anemia, obesity, alcoholism, diabetes, fatigue, or even exposure to cold, are instances. Germ growth is also favored by the presence of dead, or injured tissues, of blood clots, of foreign substances, and above all, by the presence of some of the substances in which the germ has already been growing at the time of its inoculation, and containing some of its toxins. ”

“ The idea that diseased actions may possibly be accounted for by supposing the existence of special fermentations in the blood, is by no means a new one. Inscrutable as these diseased actions themselves may be, yet, we are enabled to recognise processes of a nature analogous to fermentation as going on in that fluid in health. ”

“ The functional metabolism of the cells in turn is adjusted to the kind of poison, so that the material they pour out is suitable to neutralize the particular poison which aroused them to activity in the first place, and in most cases no other. If one gets well from any infection, there is a surplus of the neutralizing material left in his body fluids, and, as long as it remains, he is secure from another infection of the same kind. ”

“ That we may understand the Reason of the Hydrophobia, it is to be Remarked, that this dread of Water does not come on till the latter end of the Disease, Three or Four Days before Death; that is, not till this preternatural Fermentation in the Blood is come to its Heigth; and as in the Dog, so in the Patient, a great quantity of Fermentative Particles is thrown off upon the Glands of the Mouth and Stomach, as appears by his Foaming at the Mouth, &c. ”

“ Every one knows those principles, like phenic acid, which are extracted from pitch, and are also found in smoke, to which they impart antiseptic properties that have been utilized from time immemorial. Other substances have been lately discovered, not less remarkable for their energetic resistance to fermentation and virus. ”

“ We are now in a position to see how another fundamental cause of disease or predisposition to disease exists in the deprivation of the protoplasm of any of the elements needed to supply—in the food-materials—the place of those which have been permanently put aside in the form of cell-walls, or burnt off in respiration, passed out as excretions, or in other ways lost. ”

“ We know as little of the nitrifying germ in the ground as we do of the cholera and typhus germs, but we can and must judge of it by its works. We learn from its operations that the representatives of the lowest organic life, of the cell-life, perform not merely injurious but also very useful functions, that they are not merely noxious or poisonous plants ”

“ In order that it may exert this power it requires the presence of a substance normally present in the serum known as “complement.” The development of these “anti-bodies,” though it has been studied mainly in connexion with bacteria and their toxins, is not confined to their action, but can be demonstrated in regard to many other substances, such as ferments, tissue cells, red corpuscles, &c. In some animals, for example, the blood serum has the power of dissolving the red corpuscles of an animal of different species ”

“ What part of garden plants are these germs like? Why do you think so?
3. Big plants in the garden get their food from the water in the soil. I wonder if any of you can tell me where these little germ-plants get their food? When we see persons with consumption we know that these little germ-plants are growing on the cells of their lungs. This causes their lung cells and the tissue that binds them together to decay. Then these people have to cough and spit this decayed matter up. Every bit of it is often filled with these little germ-plants, or seed of consumption. ”

“ It is highly improbable that what remains after an [Pg 140] animal body has been thoroughly dissolved by putrefaction, should yield so great a quantity of inflammable air, as the dried animal substance would have done. Of this I have not made an actual trial, though I have often thought of doing it, and still intend to do it; but I think there can be no doubt of the result.
Again, iron, by its fermentation with brimstone and water, is evidently reduced to a calx, so that phlogiston must have escaped from it. ”

“ We draw it into our lungs at every breath, and are none the better for it, for we breathe it out again unchanged; and if it were completely absent from the air we should not be so very much the worse. The Ancient Mariner exclaimed, ‘Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink’; a starving man might exclaim, ‘Nitrogen, nitrogen everywhere, and not an atom to assimilate.’
Animals have to get their nitrogen in the form of proteid, a substance whose molecule is composed of nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, etc., and might roughly be described as dead protoplasm. ”

“ The fæces of animals that live on vegetables contain neither excretin, butyric acid, nor cholesterin.
The excreta of birds and serpents, which mixed with the secretion from the kidneys, are discharged from the animals by the cavities, are very similar to urine, and consist chiefly of alkaline urates and earthy phosphates.
The excrements of insects consist mainly of the remnants of the tissues, animal or vegetable which they have swallowed as food, mixed with constituents of the urine, provided the insect has no special urinary organs. ”

“ Involution, too, may be the cause of the formation of products that are out of harmony with the blood; in which connection we have in mind more especially the degeneration of the thymus, and the climacterium. ”

“ The same term has been used, by certain plant physiologists, to designate any agency, either external or internal, which stimulates plant protoplasm to abnormal activity. It has been pointed out that there are a variety of substances, which are themselves chemically neutral, that are powerful stimulants of vital activity if used in only minute proportions, but are powerful poisons if present in larger amounts. Many of the alkaloids act in this way upon the animal organism ”

“ The deprivation of oxygen interferes with the normal processes of building up and breaking down of the protoplasmic molecules, and bodies we term poisonous accumulate and may lower the vitality or even bring life to an end.
During normal life other products of the disruption of the protoplasm molecules are nitrogenous bodies, such as proteids, and these we have reason to believe are used up again, acting as the nuclei, so to speak, of the new molecules, and so being built up again with fresh food-materials into the plexus, to be again set free, and again used up, and so on. ”