On investigating the conditions under which in healthy individuals an
increased number of lymphocytes enter the blood-stream, we have in the
first place to notice the digestive canal, whose wall contains a thick
layer of lymphatic tissue. According to the results of Rieder the
proportion of the lymphocytes to polynuclears is practically normal in
the leucocytosis of digestion, indeed the lymphocytes are rather in
excess. The eosinophils on the other hand shew a marked relative
reduction in this condition. The leucocytosis of digestion consequently
differs essentially from the other kinds, in which the neutrophil
elements are chiefly increased. The simultaneous increase of lymphocytes
and polynuclears is doubtless brought about by a super-position of a
raised income of lymphocytes, and an ordinary leucocytosis caused by the
assimilated products of metabolism.
The influence of the digestive tract is still more evident in certain
diseases, more particularly in intestinal diseases of infants. A
considerable increase of the lymphocytes in the blood-stream is here to
be observed. Thus Weiss found an important increase of the white blood
corpuscles in simple catarrh of the stomach and intestines, which
presented the main features of a lymphocytosis.
Whooping-cough, according to the recent observations of Meunier, also
belongs to the small number of diseases which are accompanied by a
pronounced lymphaemia. In the convulsive period of this disease both the
polynuclear cells and the lymphocytes are increased, the latter in
preponderating amount. The former cells are increased to twice, the
lymph cells to four times their normal amount. Doubtless in these cases
also the lymphocytosis is due to the stimulation and swelling of the
tracheobronchial glands.
An increase of the lymphocytes from chemical stimuli is exceedingly
rare, though, as is well known, a large number of substances (bacterial
products, proteins, nucleins, organic extracts, and so forth) can call
forth a polynuclear leucocytosis. In quite isolated cases, an increase
of the lymphocytes in the blood in consequence of the injection of
tuberculin into tuberculous individuals has been seen. (E. Grawitz.)
From the rarity of these cases it can scarcely be doubted that here a
tuberculous disease of the glands also plays a part, so that the
increased immigration of lymphocytes is brought about not by a chemical
property of the tuberculin but by the extensive specific reaction of the
diseased glands.
Only one single substance has so far been mentioned in the literature as
capable in itself of producing a lymphocytosis. Waldstein asserts that
he has produced by injection of pilocarpine, a lymphaemia which undergoes
a progressive increase with a rise in number of the injections.
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