The nature of leucocytosis produced by nucleinic acid : a preliminary experimental study / by Delano Ames and A. A. Huntley.

  • Ames, Delano, 1906-1987.
Date:
1897
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The nature of leucocytosis produced by nucleinic acid : a preliminary experimental study / by Delano Ames and A. A. Huntley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    While, then, it was clearly proved that normal blood possessed certain properties detrimental to the growth and development of bacterial life, it was not as yet shown to what this property was to be attributed. Among some of the ideas advanced may be mentioned that of Behring,8 who believed that the germicidal action of the blood of certain animals was due to its great alkalinity. Metchnikoff9 attributed the ability of the blood to destroy bacteria to the power of certain of the white cells of the blood, the polymorphonuclear leucocytes, to devour the micro-organism, to their phagocytic power, as he termed it. That these cells can and do act in this way at times can not be denied, and nothing is more attractive than to watch one of them sur- round and engulf a malarial parasite in the blood on the warm stage. That the true germicidal prop- erty of the blood does not lie in this action of the leucocyte was shown some time after by Buchner, who killed these cells by freezing and then thawing the blood, when its power to destroy micro-organisms was found to be undiminished. Buchner10 further came to the conclusion, from a series of experiments that it is not necessary to review here, that the actual germi- cidal substance in blood was its serum-albuminous constituent. Vaughan,11 in a paper read before the medical sec- tion of the First Pan-American Medical Congress, in 1893, showed positively that this conclusion of Buch- ner must be erroneous, since it is known that what- ever the substance in the blood is that possesses germicidal properties, it is not affected by peptic digestion, while serum-albumin is readily digested, as is well known. From that time to the present numerous papers on this most important subject have appeared, and as many attempts have been made to clear up the ques- tion by the various theories that have been advanced. It would only be necessary to mention the names of some of the investigators to show that the greatest