MANNER OF ACTION. 141 



the captured bacterium, thus putting an end to the possibility 

 of its doing any harm. 



In the case of a pathogenic organism we may imagine that, 

 when captured in this way, it may share a like fate, if the 

 captor is not paralyzed by some potent poison evolved from it 

 (the italics are mine), or overwhelmed by its superior vigor 

 and rapid multiplication. In the latter event, the active career 

 of our conservative white corpuscle would be quickly term- 

 inated, and its protoplasm would serve as food for the enemy. 

 It is evident that in a contest of this kind the balance of 

 power would depend upon circumstances relating to the in- 

 herited vital characteristics of the invading parasite and of the 

 invaded leucocyte." 



In these paragraphs we have the strongest evidence of the 

 truth of the supposition stated, of the nature of the combat 

 between the tissues or the white corpuscles of the blood and 

 the wandering cells for the tissues, on the one hand, and the 

 invading organisms on the other. The writer, though not 

 intending to put forward his own experimentation in this 

 work, may say that he has also seen strong evidence of the 

 truth of this in tissue taken directly from man to the warmed 

 stage of the microscope, in which the wandering cells were 

 found loaded with micrococci, which in many instances seemed 

 to be destroying the cells. Some were motionless and filled 

 to overflowing with the organisms, with little chains of the 

 micrococci extending from them, while others containing 

 but few of the organisms exhibited their usual motions. This 

 phenomenon may occasionally be demonstrated in the peculiar 

 granulations which are sometimes found under plates for 

 artificial teeth, where the gums have taken on a bad condi- 

 tion. 



Dr. Koch has also seen micrococci in the white blood cor- 

 puscles, under circumstances that indicated that the blood cells 



