THE ADRENALS, LEUCOCYTOSIS AND PHAGOCYTOSIS. 621 



greatly. While 3 or 4 cubic centimeters of a normal rabbit's 

 serum killed guinea-pigs in a few hours, after these animals 

 had shown extreme hypothermia, diarrhoea, and collapse, the 

 necropsy revealing the presence of an abundant limpid and 

 sterile exudate in the peritoneum with but few cells, smaller 

 doses gave rise to very abundant leucocytosis. According to 

 Schiitze, 14 the steps of the process in guinea-pigs are as follows: 

 At first a limpid fluid containing a few leucocytes is exuded; 

 after about twenty-four hours an increase becomes manifest, 

 while on the third and fourth days it becomes extreme (Bes- 

 redka); after a second dose on the fourth day the count, from 

 17,500, gradually increased until 166,500 per millimeter was 

 reached. This investigator attributes the stimulating effects 

 observed to an action upon the leucocyte-producing organs: 

 a correct interpretation, provided the adrenal system is in- 

 cluded in the process. Indeed, we have submitted ample testi- 

 mony to make it evident that the adrenal system, under the in- 

 fluence of toxics, at first increases, by its secretion, the oxyhsemo- 

 globin in the blood, and correspondingly enhances all the func- 

 tions of the organism. We can, therefore, legitimately conclude 

 that the activity of all physiological protective processes, including 

 the elimination of toxics by the liver, and the production of leuco- 

 cytes, i.e., of bactericidal cells, by the lymphatic system, the bone- 

 marrow, and the spleen, is likewise enhanced when the adrenal 

 system is over stimulated by poisons. 



Another feature of phagocytosis as a physiological func- 

 tion is embodied in the postulate "muscular vessels and capil- 

 laries are antagonistic in contraction and dilation" when all 

 structures made up of endothelial cells, capillaries, serous mem- 

 branes, etc., are included in the process. Phagocytosis, as con- 

 ceived by Metchnikoff, is not limited to the polymorphonuclear 

 neutrophilic, and other wandering leucocytes, but it also in- 

 cludes stationary endothelial and connective-tissue cells, which 

 take up pathogenic organisms and foreign substances and dis- 

 integrate them, precisely as do the free cells. It also includes 

 Kupffer's stellate cells, the pulp-cells of the spleen and of the 

 bone-marrow. The quantity of living elements thus brought 



14 Schiitze: Deutsche med. Wochenschrift, No. 27, 1900; quoted by W. Bulloch, 

 Practitioner, May, 1901. 



