Historical sketch on Immunity 515 



indication. According to this observer the micrococci, introduced 

 into the circulation, are deposited in the lymphatic glands and in 

 the spleen, after having, for the most part, entered into the blood 

 corpuscles. That the ordinary bacilli of putrefaction really die in 

 the body is proved, not only by the circumstance that they remain 

 inactive after the acute paroxysm of putrid intoxication has been 

 happily surmounted, but also by the important observations made by 

 Eberth on the iunocuousness of the inoculation of ordinary bacteria 

 into the cornea." These lines contain the indication that the cor- 

 puscles of the blood (in this case undoubtedly leucocytes) ingest 

 the bacteria introduced in the blood current and destroy them. 



Some years later, in 1877, Grawitz 1 , in connection with his 

 researches on the parasite of the lily of the valley, made the remark 

 that the fungi, when introduced into the blood of mammals, are 

 seized by the white corpuscles and thus " withdrawn from contact 

 with the assimilable fluid." Gaule 2 who, as we know, sought to 

 demonstrate that the Drepanidium of the frog's blood is nothing 

 but the fragments of cell nuclei transformed into ' Wiirmchen,' has 

 described the structure of these organisms in the amoeboid cells of 

 the spleen. "I happened on one occasion," he writes, "to observe 

 an amoebocyte of the spleen of the frog which in a short time in- 

 gested three 'Wiirmchen,' and then went away briskly without leaving 

 any trace of where it had been. Following its movements I was 

 able at the first to make out within the contents of the amoebocyte 

 the refractile body of the ' Wurmchen.' But this body became paler, 

 and half-an-hour later it had been completely assimilated." Un- 

 doubtedly these "Wurmchen" were nothing but parasites (Dre- 

 pcinidium), and have no connection with the cell nuclei of frogs. 

 Their ingestion, followed by destruction, was, therefore, a defensive 

 act on the part of the body manifested by the amoeboid cells of 

 the splenic pulp. 



In the same year, 1881, in which this observation by Gaule was 

 published, Roser 3 , assistant in surgery at Marburg, published a small 

 pamphlet on the lower animals. In this pamphlet the possibility of 

 growing certain unicellular organisms in urine and milk and the [539] 

 adaptation of these organisms to saline solutions received special 

 mention. At the end of one of his paragraphs Roser expresses his 



1 Virchow's Archiv, 1877, Bd. LXX, S. 546 ; 1881, Bd. LXXXIV, S. 87. 



2 Archiv f. Physiol., Leipzig, 18S1, S. 308, Taf. v. 



3 "Beitrage zur Biologic niederster Orgauismeu," Marburg, 1881. 



332 



