PART II 

 FUNCTIONAL VARIATIONS OF PHAGOCYTES 



While it is unquestionably true "that the essential 

 regulating influence affecting phagocytosis rests upon the ac- 

 tion of the serura upon the bacteria" , (30) this should be 

 weighed against the possibility that there may be variations 

 in the functional capacities of the leucocytes themselves, 

 independent of the action of the serum. Park and Biggs (31) 

 pointed out that there vms often a demonstrable difference in 

 the phagocytic power of the leucocytes of normal persons, and 

 in 1910 Glynn and Cox (32) obtained a similar result in persons 

 suffering with staphylococcus and tuberculous infections. They 

 introduced a new factor in opsonic determinations which they 

 termed the "opsono-cytophagic-index, " and which was obtained by 

 determining tne relative phagocytic power of the leucocytes and 

 serum of one person compared with phagocytic activity of the 

 leucocytes and serum of a control individual. Tunnicliff (33) 

 demonstrated the difference in opsonic capacity exhibited by 

 the leucocytes of a baby and those of an adult, emphasizing the 

 necessity of obtaining cells and serum from children for opsonic 

 determinations on babies. Jhat there is considerable technical 

 difficultjr in com.paring the phagocytic powers of two suspensions 

 of leucocytes was demonstrated by Fleming (34) in an experiment 

 in which he showed that given two unequal suspensions of leuco- 

 cytes there 'was always less phagocytosis in the sample contain- 

 ing the greater number of leucoc^-tes. This result was probably 

 due to two factors, the relative number of bacteria in the sec- 



