■'51G The Microscope. 



ABSTRACTS. 



EDUCATING THE WHITE BLOOD - CORPUSCLES. 



"p\R. RAY LANKESTER, in an address on "The Struggle for 

 -■-^ Life" {The Hospital Gazette), in speaking of the function 

 of the white blood-corpuscles, said that the corpuscles could be edu 

 cated to deal with the bacteria, and the future of preventive medi- 

 cine would be the education of the white blood-corpuscles. The 

 fact that one man, by constant use, could, without injury, take a 

 dose of arsenic that would kill six ordinary men, was due to the fact 

 that he had, by weakened doses, been educating and training the 

 white corpuscles. They could be taught to eat and flourish 

 under conditions which, if not commenced gradually, would be 

 destractive to them, and that was the principle underlying protective 

 inoculation. As a preventive of many fatal diseases in sheep and 

 oxen, inoculation has been remarkably successful. The corpuscles 

 first receive a weakened breed of disease by inoculation, and thus, 

 when a violent attack came, they were ready to receive and dispose 

 of it. This education of the corpuscles, it seemed to him, was the 

 explanation of the success of vaccination. They received a weak 

 dose of the poison from the vaccine, and were in that way prepared 

 for a stronger dose in the way of small-pox. He believed the white 

 corpuscles could be trained to receive the most virulent poisons, and 

 he hoped this training would be carried on so as to deal with a great 

 number of diseases. — Science. 



Hereditary Transmission or Parasitic Organisms. — Max Wolff 

 {Arch. f. path. An. u. Phys. ) studies the question of the passage of 

 microbes from the mother to the foetus. His experiments deal with 

 the microbes of malignant'pustule, vaccinia, small-pox and tubercu- 

 losis. The foetus of the rabbit whose mother has been inoculated 

 with malignant pustule, is not infected, and no trace of bacilli can 

 be discovered by the microscope or by cultures. Wolff arrives at 

 similar nesrative conclusions regarding vaccinia and variola. With 

 tiiberculosis, no affirmative results were reached. While transmiBsion 

 may be possible, he considers it rare. He especially warns us that 

 the tubercular infection does not necessarily take place through the 

 organs of respiration; children being especially liable to infection 

 through eruptions and cutaneous abrasions. 



