ROLE OF LEUKOCYTES IN PHAGOCYTOSIS 63 



GROUP II. Bacteria which are readily taken up by leukocytes 

 in the presence of fresh serum, but to a slight extent also in the 

 presence of inactivated (heated) serum. 



Bacillus pyocyaneus. 



Bacillus sui pestifer. 



Bacterium sui septicum. 



GROUP III. Bacteria which are not susceptible to opsonic action, 

 and which are hence taken up by leukocytes equally well in the 

 presence of active as well as of inactive serum. 



Virulent chicken cholera bacilli. 



Virulent Asiatic cholera bacilli. 



Wright and Douglas give the following list of organisms as being 

 subject to opsonification : 



Staphylococcus aureus and albus. 



Bacillus pestis. 



Micrococcus melitensis. 



Diplococcus pneumonise. 



Bacterium coli. 



Bacillus dysenterise (Shiga). 



Bacillus anthracis. 



Bacillus typhosus. 



Vibrio cholerse. 



Bacillus tuberculosis. 



The diphtheria bacillus (in contradistinction to Gruber and 

 Futaki) and the bacillus xerosis they found to be uninfluenced by 

 the opsonins of normal serum, phagocytosis actually progressing 

 more readily in inactive than in fresh serum. 



Role of Leukocytes in Phagocytosis. Whether or not the leukocytes 

 play an absolutely indifferent role in phagocytosis, uninfluenced by 

 constituents of the serum, still remains an open question. The fact 

 that the leukocytes of a given animal will take up organisms which 

 have been subjected to the action of the serum not only of animals 

 of different species and genera, but of different classes of animals, 

 would on first thought suggest this. But, on the other hand, it has 

 been found that leukocytes, from different animals, show a different 

 phagocytic activity toward organisms that have been opsonified by 

 one given serum. Rosenow could show that in pneumonia the 

 patient's own leukocytes are more actively phagocytic than normal 



