682 INTERNAL SECRETIONS AND PRESERVATION OF LIFE. 



"While inside the cell," says this pathologist, "these granules 

 had participated in the constant, though rather sedate, move- 

 ments of the granule mass, but owing, doubtless, to the differ- 

 ence in specific gravity of the containing medium, instantly 

 upon emerging from the parent-cell they underwent the wildest 

 possible gyrations. The first to come out were two attached 

 pole to pole, and these rolled frantically over each other, 

 pushed this way and pulled that, all the time oscillating widely 

 and rapidly, yet constantly and definitely traveling farther and 

 farther from the cell, until finally lost to view. The single 

 granule behaved in an exactly similar way. I noticed, too, that 

 before becoming lost to view the motion of these granules had 

 become considerably less marked and approximated more that 

 ordinarily seen in these bodies." If these facts are considered 

 as a normal sequence to the evidence adduced that the cellular 

 net-work of fibers represents the secretory system of the leu- 

 cocyte, it seems permissible to conclude that: 



The granules in leucocytes are the products of an intracellular 

 metabolic process and represent a true secretion. 



THE PHYSIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY OF LEUCOCYTES. A 

 feature which clearly points to the autonomy of the nucleus and 

 of the net-work of canaliculi in all leucocytes is the uniformity 

 with which they all stain with similar dyes. The nuclear can- 

 aliculi and granules and the canaliculi of the cell-substance all 

 take the aniline dyes, methylene-blue and methyl-green, for ex- 

 ample: evidence that in all leucocytes the structures mentioned 

 must find in the oxidizing substance a source of energy as do 

 other organs. Beginning with the nucleus, with what chemical 

 body contained in this part of the cell could the oxidizing sub- 

 stance initiate and sustain a reaction? It is, of course, not 

 the composition of the nuclear granules that this question in- 

 volves, but that of what might be termed the nuclear ground- 

 substance. Foster refers to this substance in the following 

 words: "There is present, in somewhat considerable quantity, 

 a substance of a peculiar nature, which, since it is confined to 

 the nuclei of the corpuscles, and further seems to be present in 

 all nuclei, has been called nuclein. This nuclein, which though 

 a complex nitrogenous body is very different in composition and 

 nature from proteids, is remarkable, on the one hand, for being 



