Preface to the Third Edition.
It took less than three months for the Second Edition to be exhausted, a pleasing sign that this new field of research has excited much interest. The number of works which have been completed on the basis of the principles there laid down, and of the methods there disclosed, exceeds one hundred and twenty! Every week brings forth new works. I am not sure whether that ought to give me entirely unbroken satisfaction. The fundamental works, which have arrived at a definite conclusion in regard to the elaboration of the dialysation process and of the optical method, have been produced during the last twelve years or so. The "theoretical" part, which pointed to the possibility of a sero-diagnosis of the functions of organs, was practically established six years ago. Experiments on animals were started on a large scale, so as to allow for all possibilities. Over and over again doubts cropped up which had to be settled. The astonishing result was found that, in disturbances of certain organs, only their albuminous constituents suffer decomposition. These discoveries were not made public, and only those results, which were established in investigations on
