278 LIFE OF ELIE METCHNIKOFF 



of the higher animals ; thus his phagocyte theor 

 was born. 



Seeing that unicellular beings, like the mobile cell 

 of Metazoa, englobe, not only food, but foreig] 

 bodies, he asked himself whether this was not a 

 the same time a defensive action. Such a possi 

 bility brought no surprise to a zoologist, accustomei 

 to see that, in the struggle for existence, animal 

 often devoured their enemies. 



All the materials for the building up of the phagc 

 cyte theory were therefore ready in Metchnikoff 

 mind when he asked himself, as by an intuitioi 

 whether the white globules of our blood, globule 

 so similar to amoebae, do not play the part of 

 defensive army in our organism when they envelop 

 in accumulated masses intrusive bodies injurious t 

 the organism. 



The thought was but the result of a preparator 

 work already accomplished ; it was the butterfl 

 escaping out of the chrysalis. 



Metchnikoff had recourse to his method of simpl 

 fication in order to solve the question. 



The organism of the higher animals being es 

 tremely complicated, he went down as far as th 

 transparent larva of the starfish (bipinnaria) in orde 

 to watch with his own eyes the phenomena whic 

 take place within it. He introduced a rose-thor 

 into the transparent body of the larva, and note 

 the next day that the mobile cells in the latter ha 

 crowded towards the splinter, like an army rushin 

 to meet a foe. 



The analogy of this phenomenon with inflamniE 

 tion and the formation of an abscess was striking 

 Metchnikoff said to himself that since most disease 



