XVI PREFACE AND SUMMARY OP CONTENTS. 



dowed with functions greatly exceeding in importance any as 

 yet ascribed to them even hypothetically. Our researches 

 showed that these cells supplied the organism with the agencies 

 that combine with the oxidizing substance to insure the con- 

 tinuation of life and the efficiency of all organic functions. 

 The neutrophiles, Metchnikoff's wandering phagocytes, were 

 traced from the solitary and agminated follicles to the cavity of 

 the intestine, where they ingested proteids; then through the 

 villi, mesenteric veins, and portal veins, where they absorbed 

 the spleno-pancreatic secretion, i.e., the trypsin which Metch- 

 nikoff found them to contain. These cells formed, we ascer- 

 tained, peptones, myosinogen, and fibrinogen all globulins from 

 the proteids ingested by them and distributed these products 

 to all tissues, the muscles, and the blood itself. Ehrlich's 

 eosinophiles, non-phagocytic leucocytes, asserted their identity 

 as daughter-cells, the separation from their parent-cells, the 

 neutrophiles, occurring in the liver by mitosis. They were 

 traced to the pulmonary alveoli, where they participated in the 

 formation of the nucleated epithelium. Their product proved 

 to be haemoglobin. The basophiles were found to take up fats 

 derived from foodstuffs which penetrated the lacteals and lym- 

 phatic ducts, to convert them into myelin granules, and to dis- 

 tribute them throughout the entire nervous system. 



As these three varieties of leucocytes (all other varieties 

 being probably immature cells) were traced to the right auricle, 

 either through the inferior or superior vena cava, the presence 

 of all three in the lungs appeared necessary as controlling evi- 

 dence. Indeed, Virchow, Wagner, Cohnheim, Lenhartz, and 

 others had referred to their presence in sputum without know- 

 ing their original source. The "myelin droplets" of Virchow, or 

 "crushed nerve-substance" of Lenhartz, are familiar features of 

 this subdivision of pathology. 



Briefly, our inquiry seems to us to have shown that the 

 adrenal system is the source of the secretion which, with the 

 oxygen of the air, forms the oxidizing substance of the blood- 

 plasma. It has also revealed, we believe, the origin and mode 

 of distribution of the bodies with which this oxygen directly 

 or indirectly combines: i.e., peptones, myosinogen, fibrinogen, 

 haemoglobin, and myelin, to insure the continuation of life and 



