268 CLINICAL BACTERIOLOGY AND H^MATOLOGY 



reach 70 per cent. This fact enables infected individuals to be 

 picked out of a gang of workmen with much less trouble than 

 by an examination of the faeces. In diseases due to other in- 

 testinal worms (ascarides, oxyuris, tsenise), there may or may 

 not be eosinophilia. 



In hydatid disease there is frequently a moderate eosino- 

 philia, and sometimes a great one. This is important in the 

 diagnosis between hydatid and abscess of the liver, since in 

 the latter condition the eosinophiles are usually scanty. In 

 such a case the higher the count is above 4 per cent., the more 

 likely is the disease to be hydatid, and vice versa. 



In the only case of cysticercus I have seen the eosinophiles 

 ranged between 5 and 7 per cent. 



2. In extensive skin diseases, especially pemphigus and 

 urticaria, there is often a great increase, but it occurs in so 

 many conditions that its diagnostic value is but slight (see 



P . 289). 



3. Diseases of the lungs. In true asthma there is during the 

 paroxysms, and for a short time after them, a very decided 

 increase to 10 per cent, or so. The cells in the sputum, too, 

 are practically all eosinophiles. This does not occur in the 

 other "spasmodic diseases which so mimic true asthma, and is 

 often of critical importance in diagnosis. Eosinophiles are 

 very rare in the sputum in tuberculosis. 



4. Myelogenous leucocythamia. Here there is an enor- 

 mous absolute increase in the total number of the eosinophiles, 

 counting the eosinophile myelocytes with them; the per- 

 centage may not be greater than in health. 



This is one of the most constant signs of the condition. 



A decrease of eosinophiles occurs in nearly all inflammatory 

 leucocytoses, especially in pneumonia, where a careful search 

 over many films may fail to reveal the presence of a single 

 cell. Their reappearance in any of these diseases is of dis- 

 tinctly good omen, and one on which I place a good deal of 

 reliance. It is not of much value in pneumonia, as it does not 

 occur till after the crisis, but in chronic suppurative diseases, 

 etc., a gradual increase in the eosinophiles often heralds im- 

 provement. Neusser holds that the same is true in tuber- 

 culosis also. 



Eosinophile Myelocytes. The presence of these is prac- 

 tically diagnostic of myelogenons leucocythaemia. 



