The biological basis of specific therapy / [by] Dr. Simon Flexner.

  • Flexner, Simon, 1863-1946.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The biological basis of specific therapy / [by] Dr. Simon Flexner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    higher animals. And since then, by leaps and bounds, and through a process of logical evolution, a multitude of important diseases have been traced to the specific micro-organisms that cause them, and the complex biological conditions that determine and then suffice to defeat the ultimate consequences of infection have been gradually but surely unfolded and explained. I have chosen the theme, The Biological Basis of Specific Therapy, to present before you because it seemed fitting to commemorate the occasion by em- phasizing another great achievement in the conquest of disease, and because my own interests and studies have carried me into this particular field of investigation. In the pursuit of knowledge of this subject no aspect of the problem has been more enlightening and rewarding than that relating to the reasons for spontaneous recovery from infectious disease. The leading physicians have rarely failed to appreciate the unexcelled power of Nature herself to heal her self-inflicted wounds and to recognize that many diseases tend of themselves, when not quickly fatal, to progress toward recovery. There resides, there- fore, within the animal body a set of potential forces capable, when aroused, of exercising a highly effect- ive control over disease. Many of you are familiar with the fact that these powers have been traced to a group of substances contained within the blood and passing from the blood into the lymph, where they exert influence on the cells composing the organs and upon parasites in the interstices of the tissues.* What these substances consist of has also been ascertained •The native curative powers of the blood have been invoked to heal local diseases through the creation of a condition of artificial hyperemia or congestion. All organs that functionate are hyperemic during activity. In every form of growth and regeneration local hyperemia is present and in a degree corresponding to the rapidity and energy of the growth. . . All