THE LEUCOCYTES IN ORGANIC FUNCTIONS. 703 



covered from the blood as it escapes from the mesenteric veins. 

 It would seem as if the peptone were changed before it actually 

 gets from the interior of the intestine into the interior of the 

 capillaries/ 733 If our views are sound, the peptones are hidden 

 in the neutrophile leucocytes which the follicles of the segment 

 continue to produce. These cells, after migrating over the serum- 

 lathed (and thus constantly asepticized) epithelial surface, and 

 ingesting their burden, find their way into the villi's venules and 

 thence into the mesenteric channels. 



If the foregoing analysis and the various deductions sub- 

 mitted are sound, the neutrophile leucocytes must fulfill a role 

 in the organism commensurate with their relative proportion 

 in the blood-stream. Indeed, the following conclusion seems 

 to us to have been sustained: 



The neutrophile leucocytes, through the intermediary of their 

 granules, the ft granulations of Ehrlich, supply (1) the blood and 

 all tissues (excepting the nervous system) their nutritive elements: 

 i.e., peptones; and (2) the muscles and the blood, the compounds 

 from which they obtain their mechanical energy when exposed 

 to the action of the oxidizing substance: i.e., myosinogen and 

 fibrinogen. 



EHRLICH'S EOSINOPHILE LEUCOCYTES. Metchnikoff does 

 not grant Ehrlich's eosinophiles phagocytic properties, these 

 cells being unable to inglobe foreign bodies. Again, as empha- 

 sized by Ehrlich, the granules of these cells are only stainable 

 with acid dyes, the other varieties either taking only alkaline 

 dyes or simultaneously, as does the neutrophile just reviewed, 

 both acid and alkaline dyes, etc. This marked affinity for acids 

 obviously gives the eosinophile an identity of its own, while 

 its non-phagocytic functions as clearly separate it from the 

 finely granular cell just reviewed, which is essentially phago- 

 cytic. Ehrlich's eosinophile is usually considered under the 

 heading of "coarsely-granular oxyphile cell." 



These cells only represent from 2 to 4 per cent, of all the 

 leucocytes in the blood-stream, but this proportion is rapidly 

 increased during disease. Kanthack and Hardy, in the article 

 previously quoted, describe them as follows: "The coarsely- 



83 All italics are our own. 



