The Washington times., 1914-12-10

thereafter, even II virulent smallpox
germs arc introduced into your blood,
the chances are that this principle will
still be present in sufficient quantity to
overcome them. Thus you become i'm
mune to smallpox by the process of
vaccination.
Another way to immune a man is TO
transfer to his veins serum from the
blood of some animal that in one way
or another has become immune. This
serum Is full of the anti-germ princi-
pie, and is Just as active In the veins OF
the human patient as it was in the
veins OF the animal which produced il.
In other words. the animal serves as
sort of laboratory for the production
when II has produced enough this prin-
ciple is taken out and injected into the
human patient. The latter. Therefore,
gets hts anti-germ principles ready
, made.
Both of these schemes for minimizing
human beings are based upon an effort
to Kill living germs But many germs.
in themselves. are harmless. and il is
only the poisons they secrete that cause
death in human patients. and so there
is separate department of immunlz-
ing devoted to combating not the
germs themselves, but their poisons. We
need pay no attention to this here, des-
pite its great Importance, because the
researches OF DR.. Wright. whose val
| liable work ID a standard of COMPARE
son. has been concerned mainly with
the battle against living germs. Suffice
| II Is to say that the most conspicuous
| of germ poison antidotes is the familiar
| diphtheria antitoXin. which has reduced
| the death rate in that dreadful disease
enormously and saved the lives Of thou
sands of little children
| How It Acts.
Now, it is we'll known to all patholo-
| gists and has been known since Metch-
nikoff made his discoveries. that in the
fight against living germs the white
corpuscles Of the blood bear the greater
| burden. All of the white corpuscles-
| or leucocytes as they are called-in
healthy blood are not germ-eaters, but
| a great many of them are. 1t Is a
simple matter to observe, through
good microscope. the war between leu
4 cocytes and germs.
drops of some liquid in which germs
/ have been bred and place the mixture
\ under your lens. In il, at the start,
you will see the germs weighing about
! among the white coTpuscles. Then, sud
denly. the leucocytes (which are color
! less things. much like minute bladders
\ with seeds in them) will begin to open
: and swallow germs Some will gobble
/ two or three, and others will take q
/ dozen. III the tIlu II llAc DiOOd % GU
/ t!rely healthy. and there are not too
many grms. the leucocytes will swallow
! and kill every one of them. When this
! same process talks place in the blood OF
a human being he is cured. as we say.
! of the disease which affliCts him.
! Il was early observed that in some
cases. despite the fact that the leu
cocytes in a patients blood were plen-
t.ful and seemingly healthy they swal-
lowed few. If any. germs, which meant.
OF course. that the disease caused by
these organisms. instead OF being cured
! grew worse. Many investigators. there
| fore. concluded that there was some
thing in the blood serum. floating about
between the corpuscles, which had &c
| act upon the germs before the le-
cccytes could tackle them. This fact
seems TO have been clearly proven by
experiments by DR.. Alrnoth Wright. Of
England.
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