674 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
Systematic experiments with B.prodigiosus, B.pyocyaneus , hog cholera, 
fowl tubercle, and anthrax, usually showed that immediately after injec- 
tion of living or dead bacteria into the circulation there was an imme- 
diate and often considerable diminution of the leucocytes. The decrease 
was most manifest in the large multinucleated cells, the lymphocytes 
being less affected. If the animals survived, at not earlier than 15 hours 
after injection, the number of leucocytes increased until there were 
3-4 times as many as at first. If the cultivations of B. pyocyaneus were 
filtered before injection, then leucocytosis occurred without previous 
diminution. Injection of carmine into the circulation also had the effect 
of causing a considerable diminution in the number of leucocytes for 
some hours. 
In order to explain the sudden and extraordinary diminution of the 
blood leucocytes after intravenous injections, the author suggests that 
the leucocytes immediately consume those elements and transport them 
to (internal) viscera; for examination of the liver of rabbits, killed 
directly after carmine injection, showed that in this case leucocytes laden 
with carmine were met with mostly in the liver capillaries and in ex- 
tremely intimate relation with the endothelial cells. According to the 
author’s description, the leucocytes are at once eaten up by the hepatic 
endothelial cells, so that giant cell forms arise. Quite similar appear- 
ances are presented after injection with anthrax, and the author surmises 
that it is of general occurrence for bacteria when injected into the cir- 
culation to be eaten up by leucocytes and carried off into the viscera. 
Attention is called to the fact that these results are opposed to the 
theory of Metschnikoff, according to which leucocytes possess a kind of 
selective power, and, on account of the negative chemotactic action of the 
tissues, should be incapable of consuming virulent bacteria. The author 
strives to minimise the force of this objection to phagocytosis by remark- 
ing that Metschnikoff may have made his observations either on infec- 
tions having a fatal termination or at the height of the process, while 
here we have to deal with appearances at the very beginning, or when 
as yet the tissues have not had time to make their influence felt on the 
organism. Nevertheless, it is quite clear that the author’s statements 
are opposed to the theory of phagocytosis, for if all the bacteria which 
may get into the blood are at once eaten up, then phagocytosis can- 
not be said to possess any decisive action on the course of the infective 
process. 
New Bacillus pathogenic to Animals.* — Dr. H. Laser describes a 
new micro-organism isolated from calves which died at a certain farm 
two or three days after birth. On agar plates inoculated from liver and 
lung of the diseased animals, large white colonies grew up in 24 hours. 
The bacteria when examined in hanging drops were seen to be short 
mobile bacilli. In intensity their movements were very variable. The 
bacilli stained easily with the usual anilin dyes. Cultivated on gelatin 
the organism grew along the inoculation track either continuously or in 
separate colonies. There was no liquefaction of the medium. On agar 
the surface was covered with a greasy slimy overlay. In puncture 
cultivations on agar and grape-sugar gelatin the growth was luxuriant, 
* Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., xiii. (1893) pp. 217-23. 
