Page:Defensive Ferments of the Animal Organism (3rd edition).djvu/138

 off disharmonious material. The failure of this organ is followed by that of a second, which was accustomed to obtain secretions from the first, and thus we are led to the discovery of wheels within wheels.

Or it may be that investigation of a large material shows that certain dys-functions were attributed, on the basis of our earlier experience, to disease of a particular organ, when all the time it was functioning quite normally. For instance, the following case is quite conceivable. Let us suppose that a very definite function of organ B depends upon organ A. The latter may work quite normally, although B is so modified that it passes into the blood constituents of its own cells. Let us suppose that it is these products against which the secretion, originating from organ A, is directed; then it finds the substances, which it ought to affect within organ B, already in the blood. It combines with these substances, and in consequence never reaches organ B. We then observe the same phenomena as would result if organ A were diseased. The dialysation process and the optical method would, in this case, give the apparently astounding result, that defensive ferments are present in the blood serum which are directed against the components of organ B, whilst those which correspond to the components of organ A would, against all expectation, be entirely absent. 8