196 Prof. C. S. Sherrington. On Changes in the Blood 



Rieder* has, however, urged that the leucocytes are not destroyed, 

 but are merely collected or collect in some region of the circulation. 

 This region they leave after a time, and then become again distributed 

 generally through the circulation, when, according to Rieder, sub- 

 stances inducing positive chemotaxis reappear in the blood. Lowit 

 points out that the locus of collection of the leucocytes is not made 

 out by Rieder. Werigo,f on the other hand, has suggested that the 

 leucocytes, after the intravenous injection of participate material, 

 crowd into and remain for a time in the liver, spleen, and lungs; for 

 the lungs this has been proved by the recent work of Goldscheider 

 and Jacob ( Verhandl. der Physiol. Gesellsch. zu Berlin, six, 1893). 

 Everard, Demoor, and MassartJ point out that the medulla of bone 

 must be included in the loci of collection, and that the view can be 

 extended to the i-esnlts of injection of substances dissolved, as well as 

 particnlate. The recent experiments of Verhoogen are particu- 

 larly interesting in this connection. Moreover, Wright)) has lately 

 shown that in the case of admixture of peptone with blood this dimi- 

 nution of leucocytes does not occur when the admixture is made, not 

 in the circulation, but in blood withdrawn from the circulation. We 

 cannot consider it as proven that the phenomenon of disappearance 

 of leucocytes from the blood of the general circulation is really due 

 to direct disintegration and dissolution of them, although the manner 

 of their withdrawal from the general circulation has not yet been 

 elucidated. Until the dissolution is proven, it is obvious that leuco- 

 cytopenia is a better term for the observed phenomenon than is 

 lencocytolysis. 



A relation between the above " injection leucocytopenia " and the 

 "inflammatory lencocytopenia " of my experiments seems indicated 

 by the fact that in both the diminution is chiefly of the irregularly 

 nucleate or granular cells. The connection is rendered still more prob- 

 able from observations by Everard, Demoor, and Massart.lf Theee 

 investigators find a leucocytopenia (their hypoleucocytosis) usually 

 precede the leucocytosis induced by subcutaneous and intraperitoneal 

 injections, in considerable quantity, of bacterial cultures and culture 

 fluids. This they attribute not to destruction of leucocytes, but to 

 the leucocytes crowding into the blood vessels of the liver, spleen, and 

 marrow, in virtue of chemotactic reaction. They conclude, further, 

 that in their experiments, the leucocytopenia was chiefly due to 

 diminution of the irregularly nucleate leucocyte, another point of 

 resemblance between the leucocytopeuia of the two procedures. 



Op. cit. 

 t Op. cit. - 

 t Op. cit. 



' Travaux fait* a 1'Imtitut Solray, Unirersitf de Bruiellea,' 1893. 

 || Loc.cit. 

 T Op. cit. 



