Page:Defensive Ferments of the Animal Organism (3rd edition).djvu/168

 ferment is present which can act on this carbohydrate.

Further, the cause of disharmony with the blood plasma may depend upon the fact that cells of a particular kind have degenerated, in consequence of which they have a pathological structure, and give off a disharmonious kind of material, to which the blood plasma is unused.

We may also mention the experiments of Bauer and Reines, made for the purpose of clearing up the etiology of sclerodermy. The actual experiments point to a disturbance of the functions of the thyroid gland; but it is probable that other organs are affected sympathetically. In these experiments, also, it appears that certain organs are decomposed, while others are not.

Fauser, Wegener, Job. Fischer, Kafka, and others report numerous observations on cases of dementia præcox, paralysis, and melancholia. In the first-named disease defensive ferments appear against the sexual glands and the cortex of the brain. According to our ideas this means that these organs exhibit a disturbance of function, though which organ primarily discontinues its functions cannot at present be ascertained. In cases of melancholia no defensive ferments have as yet been found. In paralysis the cortex of the brain is nearly always decomposed.

These researches naturally do no more than imply