Volume 1

A text-book of human physiology : including histology and microscopical anatomy : with special reference to the requirements of practical medicine / by L. Landois ; translated from the seventh German edition, with additions, by William Stirling.

Date:: 1891

Credit: A text-book of human physiology : including histology and microscopical anatomy : with special reference to the requirements of practical medicine / by L. Landois ; translated from the seventh German edition, with additions, by William Stirling. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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$adhere to the sticky external surface, are carried into the interior by the internal currents, and may eventually be excreted, just as particles are taken up by amoeba and the effete particles excreted. [Max Schultze observed that coloured particles were readily taken up by these corpuscles. Conditions for movement.—In order that the amoeboid movements of the leucocytes may take place, it is necessary that there he—(1) a certahi temperature and normal atmospheric pressure; (2) the surrounding medium, within certam limits, must he “indifferent,” and contain a sufficient amount of Avater and oxygen; (3) there must he a basis or support to move on.] Effect of Reagents.—On a hot stage (35°-4:0° C.) the colourless corpuscles of warm-blooded animals retain their poAver of moving for a long time; at 40° C. for two to three hours; at 50° C. the proteids are coagulated and cause “heat rigor” and death, [avIicii their movements no longer recur on loAvermg the temperature]. In cold-blooded animals (frogs), colourless corpuscles may he seen to crawl out of small coagula, in a moist chamher, and move about in the serum. [DraAV a drop of newt’s blood into a capillary tube, seal up the ends of the latter and alloAv the blood to coagulate. After a time, examine the tube in clove oU, Avhen some of the colourless corpuscles Avill be found to have made their Avay out of the clot.] Induction shocks cause them to Avithdraw their processes and become spherical, and, if the shocks be not too strong, their movements re- commence. Strong and continued shocks kill them, causing them to SAvell up, and completely disintegrating them. Diapedesis.—-These amoeboid movements are of special interest on accoimt of the “Avandering out” (diapedesis) of colourless blood-corpuscles through the Avails of the blood-vessels (§ 95). [Effect of Drugs.—Acids and alkalies, if very dilute, at first-increase, but afterAvards arrest their movements. Sodic chloride in a 1 per cent, solution at first accelerates their movements, but afterwards produces a tetanic contraction, and, it may be, expulsion of any food particles they contain. The Cinchona alkaloids—quinine, quinidine, cinchonidine (1 : 1500)—quickly arrest the locomotive movements, as well as the protrusion of pseudopodia, although the leucocytes of different animals vary somewhat in their resistance to the action of drugs. Quinine not only arrests the movements of the leucocytes when applied to them directly, but when injected into the circulation of a frog the leucocytes no longer pass through the walls of the capillaries {Binz). ] The chyle contains leucocytes, Avhich are more resistant than those of the blood, but less so than those of the coagulable transudations. The leucocytes of the lymphatic glands may also be dissolved {Eauschenbach). Relation to Aniline Pigments.—Ehrlich has observed a remarkable relation of the Avhite corpuscles to acid (eosin, picric acid, aurantia), basic (dahlia, acetate of rosanilin), or v^tral (picrate of rosanilin) reactions. The smallest protoplasmic granules of the cells have^ different chemical affinities for these pigments. Thus Ehrlich distinguishes “ eosinophile, baso- phile,” and “neutrophile’’ granules within the cells. Eosinophile granules occur in the leucocytes which come from bone-marrow, the myelogenic leucocytes. The small leucocytes, i.e., those about the size of a coloured blood-corpuscle or slightly larger, are formed m the lymphatic glands, the lymphogenic. The large amceboid multi-nucleated cells, which are found outside the vessels in inttammations, exhibit a neutrophile reaction. Their origin is unknoAim, and so is that of the large uni-nucleated cells, and the large cells Avith constricted nuclei. Ihe eosinophile corpuscles are considerably increased in leiiktemia. The basophile granules occur also in connective-tissue corpuscles, especially in the neighbourhood of epithelium ; they are always greatly increased where chronic inflammation occurs. . , i- -i r Struggle between Microbes and the Organism.—Metschnikoff emphasizes the activity ot the leucocytes in retrogressive processes, Avhereby the parts to be removed are taken up by them in fine granules, and, as it were, are “eaten.” Hence, he calls such cells ‘phagocytes. They may be found in the atrophied tails of batrachians, the cells containing in_ their interior \vhole pieces of nerve-fibre and primitive muscular bundles. Scliizomycetes Avhicli have found their wav into the blood (§ 184) have been found to be partly taken up by the colourless corpuscles. [The spores of a kind of yeast are similarly attacked in the transpjarent tissues of the ivater- flea bv the leucocytes, and the connective-tissue cells also destroy microbes.] fit must not be forgotten in this connection that albiimoses are produced by various microbes, and that these soluble products are capable when injected into an auimal of producing immunity$