698 INTERNAL SECRETIONS AND PRESERVATION OF LIFE. 



type of uric acid as a product of perfect or physiological intra- 

 cellular metabolism, and that the phagocytic leucocytes which take 

 up nucleo-proteids from the intestinal food-products are the seat 

 of the reactions through which these bodies are converted into as- 

 similable products, i.e., peptones. 



Although we have only dealt so far, as regards the intra- 

 cellular processes with which nucleo-proteids are concerned, 

 with neutrophile leucocytes, these are not alone the seat of 

 reactions which, normally performed, end in the production of 

 uric and phosphoric acids. Indeed, we have seen that all leu- 

 cocytes contain nuclein in their "nucleus" a fitting name 

 under the circumstances, and the physio-chemical process re- 

 viewed only typifies that which occurs in all varieties of leuco- 

 cytes. Wherein the neutrophile cells are distinguishable, how- 

 ever, is in their ability as phagocytes to take up nucleo-proteids 

 from the intestine, and to break them up, by means of the 

 trypsin and oxidizing substance subsequently absorbed by them, 

 into peptone and an organic compound containing phosphorus. 



How are the various bodies, the presence of which this 

 suggests, utilized? The presence of pancreatic secretion in the 

 intestine, and of the spleno-pancreatic secretion in the portal 

 vein, would suggest that the leucocytes must be carriers of 

 carbohydrates: an important question when we consider the 

 leading functional role which myosinogen plays in muscular 

 contraction. Dextrose, formed from glycogen, itself in turn 

 a product derived from starches, forms part of a chain of events 

 which would, in a measure, have to occur within the cell itself. 

 That such is the case is suggested by the investigations of 

 Zabolotny, 29 who found that phagocytes devoured particles of 

 starch-paste and digested them: features which led this in- 

 vestigator to conclude that "the presence of an amylolytic fer- 

 ment in the phagocytes cannot be doubted." But Zabolotny 

 likewise states that when leucocytes ingest starch they become 

 iodophile. This, as is well known, has been termed by Eanvier 

 and other physiologists the "glycogen reaction." 



Foster, referring to this question, says: "In the case of 

 many corpuscles at all events, we have evidence of the presence 



29 Zabolotny: Russian Archives of Pathology, April, 1900. 



