744 INTERNAL SECRETIONS AND PRESERVATION OF LIFE. 



All the foregoing facts seem to us to warrant the following 

 conclusions as the manner in which bacteria, their toxins, and 

 all other albuminoid poisons, whether the latter be traceable to 

 imperfect physiological processes or to the introduction of these 

 poisons from without, are converted in the organism into benign 

 products: 



1. When the adrenal system, stimulated to unusual activity 

 by a poison, increases the production of oxidizing substance, all 

 the functions of the organism are correspondingly activated, in- 

 cluding (1) those of the leucocytogenic structures, thus causing 

 leucocytosis, and (2) those of the spleno-pancreatic system, thus 

 giving rise to an excessive production of trypsin. 



2. The general blood-stream thus becomes supplied with (1) 

 an excess of oxidizing substance and (2) a larger proportion of 

 neutrophile leucocytes which, on their way to the hepatic cells, ab- 

 sorb (3) a portion of the trypsin carried to the portal vein by the 

 splenic vein. 



3. The trypsin absorbed by the neutrophile leucocytes is mainly 

 stored in their perinuclear digestive vacuole, into which most of 

 the bacteria and other materials ingested by these phagocytic cells 

 are digested. 



4- An excess of heat-energy being necessary to insure the 

 prompt and adequate digestion of these substances by the trypsin, 

 this is provided for by a reaction in the canaliculi of the nucleus, 

 between the oxidizing substance absorbed by the cell with the plasma 

 and the phosphorus of the nuclein. 



5. The trypsin which serves to destroy bacteria, toxins, etc., 

 in the blood-stream, is derived from the neutrophile leucocytes and 

 is secreted simultaneously with their fibrinogen granules, when 

 their naked peripheral protoplasm is chemotactically stimulated 

 by the toxic bodies in the plasma. 



6. An excess of heat-energy being also necessary in the blood- 

 stream to insure prompt and adequate disintegration, by the tryp- 

 sin, of the bacteria, toxins, etc., present therein, this is provided 

 for by a reaction between phosphorus-laden granules of fibrinogen 

 discharged by the neutrophile leucocytes and the oxidizing substance 

 of the surrounding plasma. 



7. Both phagocytosis, carried on by wandering, endothelial, 

 and other fixed cells, and the foregoing protective process carried 



