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It now became evident that, under the right circumstances, the artificial growth of tissues could be utilized in the study of many problems; such as malignant growth of tissue; certain problems in immunity, as, for example, the production of antitoxins of certain organisms; the regulation of the growth of the organism, or of different parts of the organism; rejuvenation and senility; and the character of the internal secretions of the glands, such as the thyroid which plays a role most important in physical and mental development.
We have learned that in the processes of inflammation a battle is going on between the healing forces of the body, the phagocytes and natural antitoxins on the one hand and the disease taints, germs, bacilli, etc., on the other hand. This battle is real in every respect, as real as a combat between armies of living soldiers.
These are known as opsonins or alexins, and they act on the bacteria by a process comparable to narcotisation, and render them an easy prey for the phagocytes. Artificial or Passive Immunity. A form of immunity can be induced by the introduction of protective substances obtained from an animal which has been actively immunised. The most important of these antibodies are the antitoxins.
By means of these simple packs followed by cold ablutions, the temperature of the patient can be kept at any point desired without the use of poisonous antifever medicines, serums and antitoxins which lower the temperature by benumbing and paralyzing heart action, respiration, the red and white blood corpuscles, and thus generally lowering the vital activities of the organism.
Our antitoxins and anti-serums, which are our brightest hope in therapeutics at present, are simply antidotes which are formed in the blood of some healthy, vigorous animal against the bacillus whose virulence we wish to neutralize, such as that of diphtheria or septicemia.
Kennedy was deeply immersed in writing a lecture on the chemical compositions of various bacterial toxins and antitoxins, a thing which was as unfamiliar to me as Kamchatka, but as familiar to Kennedy as Broadway and Forty-second Street.
If the defenders of the body, the phagocyte and antitoxins, produced in the tissues and organs, gain the victory over the inimical forces which are threatening the health and life of the organism, then the symptoms of inflammation, swelling, redness, heat, pain and the accelerated heart action which accompanies them, gradually subside.
The vaccines, serums and antitoxins of medical science are prepared from these bacterial excrements and from extracts made of the bodies of bacteria.
Science has named these defensive proteins ~alexins.~ It has also been found that the phagocyte and tissue cells in the neighborhood of the area of irritation produce antipoisons or natural antitoxins, which neutralize the bacterial poisons and kill the microorganisms of disease. With the Evil, Nature Provides the Cure
The principal obstacle to the securing of antitoxins like that of diphtheria for all our infectious diseases is, that their germs form their poison so slowly that it is difficult to collect it in sufficient amounts to produce a strong concentrated antitoxin in the animal into which it is injected. But the overcoming of this difficulty is probably only a question of time.
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