LEUCOCYTOSIS AND OPSONIC CONTENT OF SERUM 5 



Hankin and Kanthack (loc. cit), Denys and Kaisin (i^), showed that 

 the bactericidal power rose or fell according to the variations in the 

 number of leucocytes whether intravascularly or extravascularly or in 

 exudates; but from these experiments, involving as they did the continued 

 vitality of the leucocytes, and thus of continued phagocytosis, no definite 

 conclusions could be drawn as to the r61e played by each in the process. 



Buchner and Schuster employed substances like aleurone emulsions 

 or gluten -casein, which they injected into the pleural cavity, thereby 

 obtaining large quantities of fluid rich in leucocytes. By a process 

 of alternate freezing and thawing the leucocytes . were killed, and the 

 mixture was found to have stronger bactericidal powers than the blood 

 serum. 



Other methods of obtaining extracts of dead leucocytes were 

 employed by Lowit (^^) and Schattenfroh, the latter of whom was led to 

 the conclusion that the bactericidal substance obtained from dead 

 leucocytes is relatively thermostable, and is not identical with the blood 

 alexines. 



The whole question of the relationship of the bactericidal body 

 in leucocytic extracts to the alexine is still sub judice, and, further, 

 the view of Metchnikoff, that alexine is formed only when the leucocytes 

 are disintegrated intravascularly or in vitro in the process of coagulation, 

 has been disputed strongly by various authors, and more recently by 

 Lambotte and Stiennon (^^). These latter observers have recently 

 employed very careful methods for the preparation of plasma entirely 

 free from leucocytes, which, however, are not destroyed in the process. 

 Their results go to show that alexine circulates as such free in the 

 plasma, for they find that the bactericidal power of the plasma so obtained 

 is equal to that of the corresponding serum after coagulation. 



The above considerations have an interest for us in this connection, 

 only in so far as the opsonic substance has been regarded by Wright and 

 Douglas and Bulloch and Atkin (loc. cit.) as a simple thermolabile 

 substance like the alexine, but which, in marked contradistinction to the 

 latter, does not require for its efficient action the co-operation of a 

 thermostable immune body. 



The latter proposition has, however, been recently disputed by Dean 

 (i7)^ who regards the opsonic substance or the substance concerned in the 

 preparation of bacteria for phagocytosis as essentially thermostable, 



(325) 



