Page:Defensive Ferments of the Animal Organism (3rd edition).djvu/136

 (E. Abderhalclen, A. Fodor, and E. Schiff). The kidneys alone were exceptional, their ferments attacking peptones originating from the most different organs. In all probability this result points to a new function of the kidney, namely, the duty of intercepting all disharmonious substances of a complicated nature, which have been brought to it by the blood, but have escaped the action of the defensive ferments of the blood. The kidney decomposes these, and by so doing renders them useful to the organism. The observations we have quoted suggest the possibility, that the kidneys may be instrumental in supplying defensive ferments to the blood. It would be very interesting to determine the contents of diseased kidneys in respect of ferments, and to find out whether they are still able to perform their duties. By such studies new points of view might be supplied, which would give us a better understanding of the particular diseases affecting this organ. Moreover, exhaustive studies on the specificity of the ferments of cells as such should enable us to prove that each kind of cell has its own structure. We shall also be able, by means of the dialysation process and of the optical method, to make a much better study of cell ferments than has hitherto been the case.

The number of problems, that arise from the facts we have brought forward, is so immense that we shall content ourselves with drawing attention to only a