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COLLOIDS 1 OoO N HEALTH AND DISEASE THE USE OF COLLOIDS IN HEALTH AND DISEASE THE CHADWICK LIBRARY THE USE OF COLLOIDS IN HEALTH AND DISEASE BY ALFRED SEARLE B. WITH FOREWORD BY SIR MALCOLM MORRIS LONDON CONSTABLE & COMPANY LTD 10 ORANGE STREET, LEICESTER SQUARE, W.C 1920 All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain FOREWORD BY SIR MALCOLM MORRIS, K.C.V.O. THE subject with which this book is concerned is one of vast extent and enormous importance. It covers wide tracts of territory in physiology and medicine. " All life processes," as Prof. Wolfgang Ostwald has " summarily said, take place in a colloidal system," andthatistruebothofthenormalfluids andsecretions of the organism and of the bacterial toxins, as well as, in large measure, of the reactions which confer im- munity. If this is so, it would seem to be an obvious desideratumthat the drugs employed tocombat disease should be in the colloidal state, i.e. in a form in which theymaybeisomorphic andisotonicwith the elements of the body. Only so can they be expected to exert their full potency. The task of thus bringing their remedial virtue to its highest point is not an easy one, for colloidal substances, unless prepared with consummate skill and meticulous care, lack stability, and are prone to precipitation when brought into contact with the electrolytes normally present in the body tissues and fluids. That it is not beyond the resources of scientific chemistry is clearly shown in this book. A measure of success has, in fact, been achieved which leaves no doubt of the brilliant future which lies before drugs in the colloidal form. To the study of colloids, both in health and disease, AUTHOR'S NOTE vi some oftheworld'sgreatest investigators havedevoted and are devoting their genius for research. Much that was mystery has already been elucidated. A very considerable body of literature has accumulated, and the time is ripe for such lucid expositions of ascer- tained results as will be found in these pages, written by an acknowledged master of the subject. AUTHOR'S NOTE THE present volume is based on a lecture delivered at the request of the Chadwick Trustees,under the chair- manshipof SirWilliamCollins, K.C.V.O.,andforms one of a series of works published under their auspices. Some of the information also appears in the author's contribution to the British Association Report on Colloids, viz. The Administration ofColloids in Disease, published by the Department of Scientific and Indus- trial Research, and obtainable from H.M. Stationery Office. A. B. SEARLE. THE WHITE BUILDING, SHKFFIKLD, November, 1919.