344 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



vasion of microbes. We know that the leucocytes have the 

 property of moving and putting out prolongations, by means of 

 which they surround foreign bodies and force them into the mass 

 of their protoplasm. They behave in a similar way toward mi- 

 crobes, which, once surrounded, are destroyed by a real intra- 

 cellular digestion, and we give the name of phagocytism to the 

 whole of these operations. Now, dilatation of the peripheric ves- 

 sels occurs in sthenic emotions, in which it is manifested by rud- 

 diness, increase of volume, and functional exaltation. In asthenic 

 emotions, on the contrary, inverse phenomena betray a diminu- 

 tion of circulation and a decrease in the caliber of the vessels, and 

 consequently a condition unfavorable to the sally of the white 

 globules and to phagoyctism. Asthenic emotions, from this point 

 of view, lead to the same conditions as traumatisms, fatigue (Char- 

 rin and Bogen), chill (Pasteur, Wagner, Platania, Charrin), inani- 

 tion (Canalis and Morpurgo), loss of blood (Serafini), and nervous 

 sections (Charrin and Ruffer, Roger and Herman). 



Not only do the conditions of the vessels change, but the pha- 

 gocytes and the white globules especially are modified as to their 

 vitality and their chimiotaxy, and their property of being at- 

 tracted or repelled by the microbes or their products of secretion 

 vary under the same circumstances. Under the influence of cold 

 the white globules tend to become paralyzed. MM. Massert and 

 Bordet, whose experiments seem to demonstrate the absence of a 

 relation between the chimiotaxic action of the leucocytes and the 

 condition of the vessels, admit that under defective conditions of 

 nutrition the whole organism is more easily impregnated by a 

 poison which provokes at every point the chimiotactic activity of 

 the leucocytes, which then have no occasion to direct themselves 

 toward any particular point. The modifications in the composi- 

 tion of the blood after nervous excitements and under emotions 

 which we have mentioned can also be adapted to this theory. Ex- 

 perimental data show that in all conditions in which nutrition is 

 deficient and painful emotion is one of these conditions infec- 

 tion is caught more easily. Evidence of this is not only derived 

 from animals ; I have had occasion to observe on man several 

 facts which give support to results obtained in the laboratory. 



Having to revaccinate patients in my practice, I inoculated a 

 dozen hemiplegic persons symmetrically in both arms in order to 

 see whether the paralyzed side would offer a different resistance 

 to the virus. Real vaccine was not developed in any of these pa- 

 tients, all of them having been vaccinated not more than three or 

 four years before. Upon three of them only were developed pus- 

 tules of false vaccine, exclusively on the hemiplegic side of one, 

 and with a marked predominence of volume and duration on the 

 other two. 



