The Body at Work: A Treatise on the Principles of PhysiologyHill, Alex
Science
The Body at Work: A Treatise on the Principles of Physiology
Hill, Alex
Physiology
with objectionable things outside the walls, but with the still
more pernicious germs which during an attack of sore throat succeed
in breaking through the epithelium. It is the invaders which elude
the vigilance of the leucocytes that cause fever and other general
symptoms. Other notable groups of lymph-follicles are found in the
middle portion of the small intestine, where they form oval patches,
about three-quarters of an inch long by half an inch broad—Peyer’s
patches. The leucocytes which are developed in them search the walls of
the intestine for germs. During an attack of enteric fever the patches
become inflamed, and one of the greatest risks which the patient
runs is the risk of ulceration of a patch and the perforation of the
intestinal wall.
The abundant provision for the multiplication of leucocytes shows that
the destruction of these cells must occur on an equally large scale.
Every day large numbers die. Where this occurs, and how their dead
bodies are removed, is not certainly known. Doubtless they are eaten
by their fellows, their substance oxidized, and the products—carbonic
acid, water, and nitrogenous waste—thrown into the lymph. There is
some reason for thinking that a part of the nitrogenous waste is
excreted in the form of uric acid (_cf._ p. 216). The daily production,
and consequent destruction, of leucocytes shows that their metabolism
is a factor which cannot be overlooked when we are making up the body’s
accounts.
The fixed tissues receive their nutriment in a digested condition.
Leucocytes digest it for themselves. In many cases, although not in
all, the cells of fixed tissues last throughout life, so far as their
outer form is concerned, although their molecules are oxidized and
replaced by new material. It is not improbable, therefore, that there
is a difference between the metabolism of the fixed tissues and the
metabolism of leucocytes. The whole of a wandering cell, its nucleus
included, breaks down and has to be removed. We do not know that
this occurs in the case of a fixed cell. On the strength of evidence
which points, apparently, to a chemical relationship between nuclear
substances and uric acid, it has been inferred that the two chief
nitrogenous products which are excreted by the kidney are divisible
into the one which in the main represents the oxidation of fixed cells,
urea, and the other, uric acid, largely derived from the oxidation of
wandering cells.
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