514 Chapter XVI 



[537] a result of the labours of Davaine and Obermeyer, the attention of 

 pathologists, especially of those working at pathological histology, 

 was drawn to the part played by micro-organisms in infective diseases, 

 a diligent search was instituted for these organisms in sections of 

 the organs of persons who had died from various diseases. Masses 

 of cocci especially were found in the organs of individuals who had 

 died from diphtheria, puerperal fever, and various forms of pyaemia. 

 In the course of these investigations attention was drawn fairly fre- 

 quently to the presence of micro-organisms inside the white corpuscles 

 of pus and of other morbid products. Amongst the first to make 

 this observation I may cite Hayem^ in France, and Birch-Hirschfeld^, 

 Klebs, Rindfleisch, von Recklinghausen, and Waldeyer in Germany. 

 Klebs^ speaks of the presence of micro-organisms in infected wounds, 

 in the interior of contractile white corpuscles, and attributes to 

 these cells the principal rdle in the transport of these parasites in 

 the lymphatic tissue. Waldeyer* cites a case of puerperal fever in 

 which the corpuscles of the peritoneal pus were filled with bacteria. 

 Similar observations were by no means rare ; and they led to a 

 general conclusion that micro-organisms meet with such favourable 

 conditions inside the leucocytes that they would contribute to their 

 dissemination through the body. This opinion had become so general 

 that when Koch^, in frogs inoculated with anthrax bacilli, made the 

 discovery of round cells containing large numbers of these micro- 

 organisms he did not hesitate to conclude that the bacilli found a 

 favourable medium in the substance of these elements. !N^ow the 

 frog, under ordinary conditions, is refractory to anthrax. 



As early as 1874, however, Panum^ had given expression to the 

 view, in a vague fashion it is true, that leucocytes might assist in 

 the destruction of micro-organisms. In his memoir on putrefactive 

 poisons we find a note wherein occurs the following reflection : 



[538] " For the solution of the question as to how and in what situations 

 the ordinary bacteria of putrefaction disappear, an interesting com- 

 munication made by Birch-Hirschfeld seems to me to furnish an 



1 Compt. rend. Soc. de biol, Paris, 1870, p. 115; Gaz. held, de med., Paris, 1871, 

 p. 291. 



2 Abstract in Schmidts Jahrh., Leipzig, 1872, Bd. clx, S. 97. 



3 "Beitrage zur pathologische Anatomie der Schusswunden," Leipzig, 1872. 



4 Archivf. Gynaeh, Berlin, 1872, Bd. iii, S. 293. 



^ Cohn's Beitr. z. Biol. d. PJlanzen, Breslau, 1876, Bd. ii, S. 300. 

 « Virchow's Archiv^ 1874, Bd. lx, S. 347. 



