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Book Review: Acidophilus and Colon Health
The research leading to this booklet was initially inspired by the extensive works of two great scientists, Professor Eli Metchnikoff and Dr James Empringham. They diligently pioneered research on the cause and relief of intestinal toxemia. Metchnikoff received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1908, and succeeded his colleague Pasteur as director of the Pasteur Institute.
Metchnikoff proposed that putrefactive bacteria in the colon produce toxins which, when absorbed into the bloodstream, cause slow poisoning of the entire system. Both Metchnikoff and Dr Empringham found lactobacteria strains secrete slightly acidic metabolic by-products which destroy or anesthetize putrefactive types of bacteria before they can take hold and cause disease. Today it is known that when lactobacteria predominate in the colon, putrefactive types are unable to live in large numbers; the effect of their secretions is proportionate to their population size.