Page:Defensive Ferments of the Animal Organism (3rd edition).djvu/127

Much weightier still, at first sight, is the following objection. In the dialysation process we make use of coagulated albumens, when looking for defensive ferments. In the optical method peptones are used which are produced from these. Is there not a contradiction between our methods of research, and the ideas developed above with respect to the cause of the origin of the defensive ferments? If we surmise that the defensive ferments serve the purpose of decomposing disharmonious substances, built up from numerous units, into their single units, then we must further agree that ferments are present which can carry on the decomposition at least so far, that the specific characteristics of the cells are entirely destroyed. Therefore we ought to expect that, where proteins are decomposed by defensive ferments, peptones will also be destroyed provided we take, as substrates, those which correspond with the normal fermentative reduction stages of the original material. If, then, we agree that a substance that is out of harmony with the plasma always has an albuminous character, i.e., that the defensive ferments commence their decomposition at this stage, then there is no difficulty in imagining that the dialysation process and the optical method lead to similar results. In the first case we allow the defensive ferment to commence the decomposition at the albuminous stage, and establish the appearance of the crystalloidal, dif-