Page:Defensive Ferments of the Animal Organism (3rd edition).djvu/123

 always brutal, and at once produce pathological conditions. We cannot imitate this method of supplying a substance in minute quantities, simply because we have no means of controlling the essential mechanism of regulation, owing to our ignorance of its nature. By our injections of disharmonious material we suddenly alter the composition of the blood, and injuriously affect the whole organism. It is, in this respect, most interesting that defensive ferments which only decompose cane sugar, can be obtained when, for instance, cane sugar is injected in very small quantities. As the quantity of cane sugar is increased then, very often, the blood serum is able to dissociate milk sugar as well. But, if too much of the above kind of sugar be introduced into the blood, then as a rule defensive ferments do not appear at all. Further, it is possible that the substances, which we artificially introduce into the body, are not sufficiently fine in structure to produce specific ferments, specially directed against them. The cell gives off its particular disharmonious substances with their specific features stamped on them, while we, on the contrary, bring into the circulation material that has already been altered. This difference may be illustrated in the following manner. Suppose, on the one hand, that two persons start to fight each other with two "specifically" chosen weapons. Such a fight is premeditated; the weapons are precise, and the