378 CELL INTELLIGENCE THE CAUSE OF EVOLUTION 



animal, man included, must keep up a continual fight for 

 existence? Some small species of cells like the diphtheria 

 cells or lock-jaw cells fight our body cells with poison. 

 Their poison is so deadly that the white cells or soldiers 

 of our bodies, who have the business in charge of de- 

 stroying all the enemies of the body, are compelled to 

 actually fight these diphtheria germs at a distance and 

 apparently also with poison. The following from a reli- 

 able medical textbook is interesting : 



"Very important members of the cell community are 

 certain colorless cells, the white blood corpuscles or leu- 

 cocytes, which float in the blood stream or wander in the 

 tissue spaces. These cells are the sanitary inspectors, 

 the police and the scavengers of the community. They 

 can be seen to approach intrusive microbes, inclose them 

 with their own substance and destroy them, apparently 

 by digestion, or else perish themselves, apparently by 

 poisoning. On account of this function of ingesting 

 microbes, they have been termed phagocites. The skin, 

 food and air passages swarm with bacteria all the time 

 and only now and then do they enter and get a foothold. 

 The fact that microbes of disease are often able to break 

 down the defense and enter the tissue, whereas the harm- 

 less types are unable to do so, points to the fact that the 

 former have special means of offense and have adapted 

 themselves by special means of offense and defense. 



"Some microbes like tetanus and diphtheria elaborate 

 a poison in self defense. The toxin or poison enters the 

 blood stream at the small area affected and produces the 

 symptoms of poisoning. Toxins like pepsin and trypsyn 

 are digestive secretions. 



"It appears that phagocites and possibly other cells of 

 the body secrete substances as harmless to themselves as 

 pepsin is to the stomach cells, which act as counter toxin 



