HISTORY OF THE INFLAMMATORY PROCESS. 113 



podia, till it acquires a superficial resemblance to an Acti- 

 nophrys. I have only seen these phagocjtes in the living 

 uninjured tail, in the case of Bombinator larvse, where, at the 

 beginning of the metamorphosis, they collect round the muscles 

 of the tail, the fibres of which are gradually surrounded and 

 devoured. The fragments of muscle retain their structure for 

 some time after ingestion; gradually, however, they lose their 

 striation and break up into rounded strongly refracting globules. 



In the body-cavity of Batrachians 1 found during metamor- 

 phosis a large number of similar amoeboid cells, which, how- 

 ever, did not contain muscle fragments, but only rounded 

 granules. I think it justifiable to conclude from this that the 

 phagocytes, after feeding on the tissue of the tail, pass into 

 the body-cavity, whence they enter the lymphatics, and finally 

 reach the blood. 



The atrophy of the gills is not so easy to follow ; but during 

 its progress it is easy to ascertain the presence of large fully 

 laden phagocytes. 



So that phagocytes seem to play a part in the metamor- 

 phosis of Batrachians as important as that which they have 

 been shown to take in the larval changes of Bipinnaria and 

 Auricularia. There is also pathological evidence to prove 

 their agency in the so-called active degeneration of muscles and 

 nerves. 



In order to ascertain whether in Vertebrates as well as in 

 Invertebrates the phagocytes had the power of ingesting 

 parasitic bacteria, I injected putrescent blood beneath the skin 

 of a frog, so as to induce septicaemia. After a time the white 

 blood- corpuscles were found to contain both still and motile 

 bactei'ia, each surrounded by a vacuole. The bacteria were 

 especially abundant in the phagocytes of the spleen, which con- 

 firms the statement of pathologists that the white corpuscles, 

 when they have ingested an insoluble body, are carried into 

 the spleen. This fact seems to indicate that the spleen is a 

 prophylactic organ, whose function it is to provide for the 

 removal of septic bodies from the organism ; that in fact it 

 is in function analogous to the nematocalyces of Plumularia, 



VOL. XXIV. MEW SKK. H 



