GERMS. 59 



river collects where the stream is broad and the current 

 slackened. 



Instead of the white corpuscles being sent to the 

 point of injury they collect there by reason of a slug- 

 gish circulation. To prove this we only have to re- 

 member that during health they are more numerous 

 in the veins than in the arteries. The circulation is 

 naturally more sluggish in the veins because the veins 

 are larger. Their increase at the point of injury is 

 mechanical. 



Do the white corpuscles ever escape from the arteries 

 into the surrounding tissue and destroy germs as 

 claimed by Prof. Metschnikoff and his followers ? 



When poison or injury causes the vessels to dilate 

 with a corresponding slowing of the current, as de- 

 scribed, the white corpuscles, being much larger than 

 the red ones,, naturally drift to one side. It would be 

 impossble to keep a heavy timber in the center of a 

 swiftly moving current or stream. The timber would 

 seek the first cove and remain under some sheltering 

 bank. That is why driftwood is always found along 

 the shore. It is the same with the white corpuscles; 

 being much larger than the red ones they cling along 

 the sides of the vessels, and as the vessels dilate the 

 walls become correspondingly thinner and many white 

 corpuscles pass through. The more the vessels are 

 stretched the easier the white corpuscles can escape. 



The pus contained in every abscess is made up largely 

 of white corpuscles; they accumulate at the point of 

 inflammation in the manner described, tumble around, 



