Page 140 - My FlipBook
P. 140
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that act to take up foreign substances that enter the blood
or tissues, digest them and dispose of them. Now, these
phagocytes gather wherever there is a disturbance within
the tissues, wherever there is an inflammatory movement.
They creep through the blood vessels into the inflamed area
of tissue, and they will creep into anything placed in the tis-
sue. If we make a slit in the tissue and put a piece of flesh
within the wound they will creep into that and they will begin
to decompose and carry it away. So they will creep into any-
thing of that kind and begin to digest it and carry it away.
They act as the amoeba—they surround the particle of food,
form a stomach for the occasion and digest that particle. So
wherever there are micro-organisms within the tissue a bat-
tle royal begins between the phagocytes and the micro-organ-
isms by which the micro-organisms are disposed of, or in
many cases the phagocytes are disposed of ; it is a question
which is the stronger. This theory of phagocytosis was
elaborated by Metschnikoff in 1884 and was thought then to
explain the difference between immunity and susceptibility
existing among different animals or among different men,
but latterly it has been found that it only explains this in a
minor degree and that their influence is perhaps a minor one
as compared with the antitoxins and the alexins, in causing
immunity to disease. For instance, in the white mouse the
phagocytes destroy the anthrax, and the anthrax cannot grow
in the white mouse, apparently, because they are taken up,
digested and destroyed by the phagocytes ; yet in the gray
mouse—an animal almost exactly similar—the phagocytes do
not destroy the anthrax—they are destroyed by the anthrax.
The animals are very much alike, so much alike that it is diffi-
cult to tell the dilTference except by the color. Take the rab-
bits—in the white rabbit the pneumococcus grows freely
and the animals die readily, while the gray rabbit is very re-
fractory, very difficult to make it take the disease by inocula-
tion ; and yet, the animals are so much alike, and their white
blood cells are presumably so much alike that we cannot ex-
plain the difference upon that, ground. So that while the
phagocytes do do much, and they do present the battle royal
that has been pictured, yet they are not of the importance
in relation to the prevention of disease by micro-organisms
that the antitoxins or the alexins developed in the blood are.
128
that act to take up foreign substances that enter the blood
or tissues, digest them and dispose of them. Now, these
phagocytes gather wherever there is a disturbance within
the tissues, wherever there is an inflammatory movement.
They creep through the blood vessels into the inflamed area
of tissue, and they will creep into anything placed in the tis-
sue. If we make a slit in the tissue and put a piece of flesh
within the wound they will creep into that and they will begin
to decompose and carry it away. So they will creep into any-
thing of that kind and begin to digest it and carry it away.
They act as the amoeba—they surround the particle of food,
form a stomach for the occasion and digest that particle. So
wherever there are micro-organisms within the tissue a bat-
tle royal begins between the phagocytes and the micro-organ-
isms by which the micro-organisms are disposed of, or in
many cases the phagocytes are disposed of ; it is a question
which is the stronger. This theory of phagocytosis was
elaborated by Metschnikoff in 1884 and was thought then to
explain the difference between immunity and susceptibility
existing among different animals or among different men,
but latterly it has been found that it only explains this in a
minor degree and that their influence is perhaps a minor one
as compared with the antitoxins and the alexins, in causing
immunity to disease. For instance, in the white mouse the
phagocytes destroy the anthrax, and the anthrax cannot grow
in the white mouse, apparently, because they are taken up,
digested and destroyed by the phagocytes ; yet in the gray
mouse—an animal almost exactly similar—the phagocytes do
not destroy the anthrax—they are destroyed by the anthrax.
The animals are very much alike, so much alike that it is diffi-
cult to tell the dilTference except by the color. Take the rab-
bits—in the white rabbit the pneumococcus grows freely
and the animals die readily, while the gray rabbit is very re-
fractory, very difficult to make it take the disease by inocula-
tion ; and yet, the animals are so much alike, and their white
blood cells are presumably so much alike that we cannot ex-
plain the difference upon that, ground. So that while the
phagocytes do do much, and they do present the battle royal
that has been pictured, yet they are not of the importance
in relation to the prevention of disease by micro-organisms
that the antitoxins or the alexins developed in the blood are.
128
