Page:Alcohol, a Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine.djvu/282

274 . If this first line of defence is broken through, the bacilli pass through the lymphatic spaces and ducts to the glands, and another battle ensues which produces glandular swelling and inflammation and possibly abscess. This second line of defence may be insufficient and then we get general septicæmia. It is now well proven that the injury is done, not by the bacilli themselves but by the toxines which they secrete or excrete. Dr. Broadbent very properly points out that the action of the bacilli of fever in the body is strictly comparable to the action of yeast in a fermentable liquid. The yeast cells grow and multiply at the expense of the sugar, in destroying which they produce alcohol, carbonic dioxide and other substances. When the alcohol amounts to some 17 per cent, of the liquid the process is stopped by the poisonous action of the alcohol on the yeast cells. In just the same way the toxines produced by the bacilli at length stop their further multiplication and put an end to the disease. Alcohol is in fact, the toxine produced by yeast, and, like many other toxines, it is not only poisonous to cells which produce it, but to any animal into whose veins it may happen to get.

"There can be little doubt that the state of immunity which one attack of certain fevers confers against future attacks depends partly upon what is called the phagocytic action of leucocytes. These have been actually observed to draw into their interior and destroy bacilli which would otherwise have multiplied and produced their special effects. There can be little doubt, either, that we are continually taking into our systems bacilli of all sorts, and that, again, disease is averted by the activity of the germ-devouring leucocytes. Dr. Broadbent describes an experiment which proves that power of resisting disease is largely dependent on the activity of these cells. A rabbit, having had a certain quantity of bacilli injected under its skin, suffers from inflammation at the spot, and perhaps abscess, but recovers. At the same time, another rabbit is treated in precisely the same way, but, simultaneously,