272 THE DIVISION OF LEUCOCYTES 



augmenting substance might appear in the peripheral 

 circulation. It has already been pointed out in 

 Chapter VIII. that cancer plasma excites amoeboid 

 movements in leucocytes, and that alkaloids also excite 

 these movements. Since the alkaloid atropine augments 

 the action of azur stain in inducing divisions, it was 

 thought possible that the exciter of amoeboid move- 

 ments found in cancer plasma might be in the nature 

 of an alkaloid possibly derived from the neighbourhood 

 of the growth. Now, atropine and stain together cause 

 white blood-cells to extrude granules of chromatin, a 

 phenomenon which we erroneously called "flagellation" 

 (see Chapter X.), and this extrusion had also been 

 observed in cells which have been subjected to cancerous 

 plasma. 1 The suggestion followed that the cells might 

 be extruding their granules deliberately in response, not 

 only the artificial combination of stain and alkaloid, 

 but also to some possibly similar combination derived 

 from the malignant growth. Moreover, since in both 

 the artificial and the natural circumstances, cells appear 

 to divide with a reduced number of chromosomes, and 

 since the granules form the chromosomes, it was sur- 

 mised that the extrusion might be part of the process 

 of reduction. It must be remembered that our ex- 

 perimentation left us convinced that the divisions of 

 lymphocytes and leucocytes occur just as the stain is 

 combining with the chromosome-granules; and as the 

 extrusion of the granules which has been seen by 

 others as well as ourselves seems to be a deliberate 



1 "The Flagellation of Lymphocytes in the Presence of Excitants both 

 Artificial and Cancerous," by H. C. Ross and C. J. Macalister, British 

 Medical Journal, January 16, 1909. 



