Volume 1

The Internal secretions and the principles of medicine / by Charles E. de M. Sajous.

  • Sajous, Charles E. de M. (Charles Eucharist de Medicis), 1852-1929.
Date:
1903-1907
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The Internal secretions and the principles of medicine / by Charles E. de M. Sajous. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    tage. It seems to us, therefore, that we can legitimately con- clude that:— 6. The use of antitoxic serum or of the various sera intro- duced is only indicated in moriid processes characterized iy a de- ficiency of trypsin. In all other pathological conditions drugs are productive of better effects, because these can be scientifically controlled. ARTIFICIALLY PRODUCED IMMUNITY. The foregoing deduction seems to us to embody a far- reaching meaning in connection with the subject which is now to claim our attention. If the entire domain of immunity is scrutinized, it will become apparent that the effects of all inoculations are similar: they all react more or less promptly and more or less vigorously upon the adrenal system; and upon the character of this stimulation depends the duration of degree of the protection conferred upon the inoculated sub- ject. Here we no longer have as active factors benign sera of varying strengths which require two complementary bodies in joint action to manifest their beneficial activity; we are deal- ing with toxalbumins, far more active than many of the more potent alkaloids of our pharmacopoeia, but which present the same physiological attributes as alkaloids and all drugs and toxins. Still, a distinction asserts itself in this connection, which will serve to give each of the forms of immunity artificially produced its true physiological bearing. Indeed, we must not lose sight of the fact that there is a difference of vast practical importance between the action of a dose of toxins introduced artificially into the blood-stream and the manner in which a disease is developed in the organism either through the en- trance of pathogenic germs directly into the blood or, as in diphtheria and tetanus, through the intermediary of a periph- eral focus of these germs. WHiether these myriads of toxin laboratories be in the blood or outside of it matters little as long as their products enter the blood. Disease means the in- troduction of these sources of toxins, which rapidly increase in number in blood devoid of trypsin, while artificial immuniza-