62 ELIMINATION OF PATHOGENIC MICRO -O EGA N IS MS. 



destructive power. Their experiments with different microbes 

 showed that both defibrinated and freshly-drawn blood manifest a 

 decidedly deadly action upon them for more than four hours after 

 it has been drawn from the body. For example, the number of 

 anthrax bacilli in a given quantity of material was reduced in two 

 hours from 4800 to 56, by being mixed in a test-tube with defib- 

 rinated blood; and three hours later only 3 living bacilli re- 

 mained. The destructive action of the blood on putrefactive bac- 

 teria is, however, much less marked, and against some of them, at 

 least, the blood manifested little or no germicidal action. 



Ribbert ("Ueber den Verlauf der durch Staphylococcus aureus in 

 der Haut von Kauiuchen hervorgerufenen Entzundung," Deutsche 

 Wochenschrifi, No. 6, 1889) studied experimentally the phago- 

 cytic action of leucocytes in the tissues infected with pus-microbes. 

 He made the skin of rabbits over a limited area aseptic, and made 

 inoculations with pus-microbes by introducing a pure culture of 

 the yellow coccus through punctures made with a cataract-needle. 

 In cases where the small wound healed rapidly he found on exam- 

 ining the tissues that even during the course of the first day all 

 of the microbes had reached the interior of the leucocytes and 

 fixed connective-tissue cells and showed signs of destructive 

 changes. Later the cocci disappeared completely. Thirty-six 

 hours after inoculation he found distinct mitotic changes in the 

 connective-tissue cells within and in the immediate vicinity of the 

 inflammatory focus and somewhat earlier in the epithelial cells. 

 If suppuration occurred he found a considerable aggregation of 

 leucocytes, which apparently were being destroyed by the cocci, 

 consequently phagocytosis was not present ; on the other hand, the 

 cocci underwent destructive changes to the fourth day, and were 

 then taken up by the macrophagi. The death of the cocci under 

 these circumstances was not caused by the phagocytes but was 

 owing to the exclusion of oxygen or other nutrient material by the 

 wall of cells in their vicinity. 



Ruffer (" Notes on the Destruction of Microorganisms by Amoe- 

 boid Cells," British Medical Journal, August 30, 1890) is a firm 

 believer in the phagocytic action of leucocytes and other amoeboid 

 cells. He first studied sections of the Peyer's patches of rabbits, 

 removed with antiseptic precautions, plunged at once into absolute 

 alcohol, and then stained with carmine and gentian-violet. He 

 often found, crowded in between the layer of epithelial cells in 

 the inner surface of the mucous membrane, leucocytes holding 

 microorganisms in their protoplasm. In the submucous tissue he 

 also found lymphoid cells enlarged to the size of the so-called 

 epithelioid cells. He also found leucocytes in the interior of the 

 macrophagi. He asserts that the leucocytes wander out to the 



