214 



NATURE 



[Dfxember 14. lOI I 



tion and movotl from one place to another. Hy aid 

 of this motion those leucocytes are able to fulfil one 

 of their besl-known functions, which is to act ns 



fully appreciate the skill uimn n.is mnu: *< 

 inp of such photographic films as these. 



\W h.ivc (i\v< It cliiifly upon th** mirros 



Seritu of picture* of normal haman blood, hrorn a kincnuiograpti nim. 



Fig. a. — Amoeboid 

 movement of leuco- 

 cytes. 



FlO. ^. — Tryp.inosomc.s 

 in the blood. 



scavengers of the vascular ways of the body, and to 

 take up into themselves abnormal substances with which 

 they come in contact, whether microbes, diseased cells, 

 or granules of inert matter ; and this process is illus- 

 trated for us by a series showing the gradual sur- 

 rounding and ingestion of a red corpuscle by a white 

 cell. This is the phenomenon of phagocytosis, which 

 has of late been brought so prominently before the 

 public in its relation to the cure of infectious disease. 



That such abnormal substances may occur in the 

 blood is shown in a beautiful series of pictures of its 

 condition in relapsing fever. After we have been made 

 familiar with the appearance of normal blood, in 

 which the red corpuscles appear as brilliant rings and 

 the larger white cells as cloudy masses w'ith shadowy 

 nucleus and brightly shining granules, we see the 

 blood as it may appear at the height of an attack of 

 the disease. It is now full of foreign organisms, long, 

 slender spiral threads, which dart hither and thither 

 upon the screen, now hooking themselves together 

 and again disentangling themselves, impinging on the 

 red cells and recoiling in amazing numbers and 

 activity. The whole blood history of an attack is 

 shown on these films, from the interval between the 

 crises when no organisms are present, through the 

 period of multiplication to the termination of the attack 

 with the tendency of the spirals to aggregate together 

 and eventually disappear. Several such blood-pictures 

 may be seen, including a most beautiful preparation 

 of an infection with a trypanosome, a close ally of the 

 organism which produces sleeping sickness. Here 

 the parasite is seen in quite perfect distinctness, 

 swarming in enormous numbers in a drop of blood 

 with an incredible activity and energy of motion. 



Technically perhaps the greatest triumph of these 

 microkinematograph pictures are the films which 

 show us the Spirochaeta pallida, the causal organism 

 of syohilis. This delicate thread, with its many tiny 

 spirals, is so exceedingly minute that even When 

 motionless and stained it is difficult to see with the 

 best of ordinar>' microscopes. But here it appears 

 alive and moving, with its coils all clear and sharp, 

 a perfectly distinct picture. Only those who know 

 the careful pains, which are necessary to obtain a 

 satisfactory demonstration of this tiny object, can 



vv'll:*«f^ 



J f%-^ 



Fig. 4. — .Spirillo«is of 

 fowls. 



-R e I apsing 

 fever. 



parations which Messrs. Pathd Freres have exhibite 

 because they seem to us the most remarkable of th< 



Fig. 6. 



-Spirocharta of Syphilis (from the cornea of the eye) enlar^ec. 



which we have seen. But there are many other 

 applications of kinematography to biological subjects 



