38 ON THE DIFFERENTIAL REACTION TO VITAL DYES EXHIBITED BY 



because " decolorization " or rather demobilization phenomena also result with 

 these "metabolic" deposits. The formation or obliteration of such metabolic 

 deposits can be seen to depend accurately on the specific content in them of the body 

 fluids. Remarkable as it may seem, we have been for a long while in the possession 

 of facts which show that a "balance" must exist between the intracellular deposits 

 of some substances and the content of the fluids outside the cell, regardless of the 

 fact that such materials are temporarily set apart from the general protoplasmic 

 substance and would hence not seem free to participate in its exchanges. 1 



In the case of the dj r es, the perfection of this "balance" between intra-ccllular 

 and extra-cellular dye concentration depends on the type of cellular deposits, 

 for some dj r e granules easily shed their content into the blood-stream, while others 

 are singularly resistant to such withdrawal. Other things being equal, the intense 

 local stains secured by the application of negative or highly colloidal dyes to the skin 

 or peritoneal cavity are uniformly more permanent than stains produced by more dif- 

 fusible dyes. There are two possible explanations for this. We may be dealing 

 more predominantly with coarse phagocytosis, or we may have to do with deposits 

 produced in the usual manner (whatever that may be), but more concentrated 

 and hence less soluble, or with deposits inherently less soluble than usual. While 

 it could not be denied that in the immediate neighborhood of the injection the large 

 particles of a negative dye could, and do, gain access to cells by coarse phagocy- 

 tosis, the tissues further distant are also affected by these dyes. The intraperi- 

 toneal administration of a negative dye like oxamine blue may finally give us a 

 very marked lymph-gland and bone-marrow stain. It is possible that the slight 

 diffusible component of such negative dyes produces the staining of these distant 

 tissues, but the same mechanism which permits large particles to enter lymphatic 

 trunks from the peritoneal cavity may also permit direct entrance into the vascular 

 systems, and the phenomenon which we have cited may be merely an elective 

 filtering-out of these particles by true phagocytosis. 2 



1 The metabolic deposits, however, do not, of course, occur, except under definite conditions of protoplasmic concen- 

 tration or richness in these substances, and it is the protoplasmic content of the substance which in turn actually stands in 

 "balance" with the content of the tissue juices or blood-stream. If the demobilization of metabolic deposits is brought 

 about by enzyme action, as would seem, for instance, to be the case where glycogen in the liver cells is hydrolyzed by 

 amylase to glucose, a prompt cessation of this hydrolysis occurs whenever the sugar-content of the liver cells accumulates 

 through any cause which will prevent its prompt removal from the cells, and this would occur through changes in permeability 

 of the cell membrane, as Bayliss (1915) suggests, or the fact that a high sugar-content of the body fluids prevented egress 

 of the sugar. Croft Hill is cited as believing that the same enzyme in the latter circumstance may actually reverse its 

 action and accomplish the synthesis of glycogen, which from its physical character belongs to the class of substances which 

 can be concentrated in solid form in the cell. 



5 We have refrained from citing the staining of the lymph-glands which receive the lymphatic trunks draining the 

 peritoneum, or the staining of the omentum or Kupfer cells of the liver, because all these instances are open to interpretation 

 as "coarse phagocytosis," inasmuch as a peculiar biological mechanism permits coarser particulate matter (e. g., India ink) 

 to accumulate there than would gain wider distribution. It is certain that in cases where ultramicroscopic phagocytosis 

 has been the only available agency to explain cell inclusions, the inclusions in question are more permanent and are not able 

 to decrease their intracellular concentration except by a very slow process of liberation of constituent particles which escape 

 the cell, e. g., carbon or colloidal silver. To those who would look upon these last-mentioned deposits, however, as permanent 

 "tatoos," it is only necessary to state that this also is a relative matter, i. c, such deposits have the best insurance of 

 permanency if they are concentrated in a particularly intense way at focal points in the tissue, such, for instance, as can be 

 produced by actual subcutaneous puncture or as occurs in the adjacent lymph-glands which drain a particular area (bronchial 

 lymph glandular anthracosis). Great caution must be exercised in the assumption of permanency for more generally dis- 

 tributed particulate matter. Lange (1909) has shown that the body is free from colloidal silver one month after intravenous 

 treatment with itl "Das Gesammtergebniss unserer Untersuchungen kann sonach dahin zusammengefasst werden, dass im 

 unmittellmren Anschluss an die Einfiihrung von Silber in Form von colloidalem Silber wohl eine allgemeinc Vertheilung liber 

 den gesammten Organismus durch den Blutstrom stattfindet, das diese aber nur eine voriibergehende ist und dass, selbst 

 von den Hanptahlagerungsorten des Silbere, dieses in verhaltnissmassig kurzer Zeit wieder zur Auascheidung gelangt." 



