( 155 ) 



made in serum supplemented with an equal quantity of salt. This 

 proves that besides the osmotic pressure, which must principally 

 be made accountable for the decline, there is still another factor at 

 work, and this factor can be no other than the modification — however 

 slight ■ — produced by a pure solution of NaCl in the chemical structure 

 of the phagocytes. Some time ago, one of us, in conjunction with 

 Dr. van der Schroeff '), already demonstrated that the leucocytes 

 the same as the red corpuscles are in any case permeable to anions. 

 It is therefore evident that, owing to their chemical structure being 

 interfered with, the cells most lose some of their vitality (phago- 

 cytarian power) under the action of pure salt solutions, — or 

 rather, that the}- should lose more than in an isosmotic serum. 



We have submitted this hypothesis to further experiments, starting 

 from the following reasoning : If it is a fact that in a hyper-isotonic 

 solution of salt, the phagocytes undergo a chemical variation through 

 exchange of ions, it must be possible to restore this loss of pliago- 

 cytarian capacity resulting from their modification in their structure, 

 by replacing them in normal serum, and that this recovery will 

 not be complete by immersion in a 0.9 % solution of salt. The 

 following table proves that we were correct in our surmise. 



TABLE VII. 



Effect of solutions of salt on the chemical structure 

 of the phagocytes. 



! ) Hamburger and van der Schroeff. 1. c. 



