THEORIES OF IMMUNITY. 



especially insisted upon the fact that this prop- 

 erty depended upon the presence of special sub- 

 stances of an albuminoid nature to which he 

 gave the name of alexines. He also demon- 

 strated the very important fact that the red 

 blood globules of one species of animal intro- 

 duced into the blood of another would undergo 

 destruction (a globulicidal action) similar in 

 nature to the bactericidal action already demon- 

 strated. 



In France, Bouchard especially adopted the 

 humoral theory as explaining immunity (Les 

 Microbes Pathogenes, Paris, 1892), and was 

 strongly supported by Charrin and Roger, his 

 students. Most of their work was done with 

 the bacillus pyocyaneus and their results con- 

 firmed them in the belief that the condition of 

 immunity was due to the action of the body 

 fluids, and not in any case to the action of the 

 cells. They attributed both natural and ac- 

 quired immunity to a special property of the 

 body fluids, and considered that the part of the 

 phagocytes was secondary, that they were con- 

 cerned simply in carrying off the bodies of the 



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