198 Chapter VII 



of the phagocytes, but continue within these cells. Our present 

 methods of investigation do not enable us to come to any conclusion 

 on this point We know only that the digestion of the formed 

 elements is more complete inside the phagocytes than in the serums. 

 Thus, as we have seen in Chapter IV, the best spermotoxic and 

 haemolytic serums never digest either spermatozoa or the nuclei of 

 the red corpuscles of birds. And yet these elements are completely 

 dissolved in the phagocytic contents. Does this difference depend 

 on the fact that, in the serums, we get only a very small part of the 

 macrocytase, or upon the injurious influence of the alkalinity of the 

 serums on the macrocytase which acts better in weakly acid media, 

 or on the presence in the phagocytes of other endo-enzymes still un- 

 known ? These are questions to which at present no definite answer 

 can be given. 



Just as animal cells, when ingested by phagocytes during resorp- 

 tion (see Chap. IV), immediately become permeable to stains, so in 

 natural immunity do micro-organisms taken into phagocytes acquire 

 the same property. Very often, under the influence of the phagocytic 

 action, the ingested micro-organisms become stainable by eosin (fig. 

 36). This eosinophile transformation has been observed in the cholera 

 vibrio, the anthrax bacillus and in Proteus vulgaris. It is probably 

 widely diffused among the phagocytised bacteria. This fact demon- 

 strates clearly that at least some of the eosinophile granules are 

 derived from foreign bodies ingested by the phagocytes. Others of 

 these granules are probably the result of the transformation of soluble 

 substances absorbed by the phagocytes. In fact, during inflammation, 

 many microphages which contain no foreign solid body, may often be 

 seen charged with a quantity of small pseudo-eosinophile granules. 



Certain vibrios and bacilli, when ingested by microphages, become 

 transformed, almost immediately, into spherical granules. The cholera 

 vibrio undergoes the same transformation in the peritoneal exudation 

 at the moment of phagolysis, as also in blood serum. The Bacillus 

 coli, the typhoid bacillus, and certain other cocco-bacilli do not change 

 in the least, or change very slightly in serum, but exhibit the trans- 

 formation into granules when inside microphages. The macrophages, 

 on the other hand, digest the same bacteria (vibrios and cocco-bacilli) 

 without these bacteria presenting any signs of this change of form. 

 The bacterial membrane resists the influence of the phagocytic diges- 

 tion longer than do the contents, but is in the long run also completely 

 digested. After the ingestion and destruction of micro-organisms 



