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
tattooed, much of the Indian ink and other pigment remains where it was
inserted with the needle, but some of it is picked up by leucocytes and
carried to the nearest lymphatic gland.
Lymphatic glands are barriers which stop the spread of infection.
They are the stations to which our police carry captured germs. The
skin of the heel is abraded. Germs from the soil, or elsewhere, which
have accumulated in a dirty stocking—owing to the warm moisture
enclosed by an impervious boot, the woollen covering of the foot is a
peculiarly healthy place for germs—enter the opened lymph-spaces of
the subcutaneous tissues. Leucocytes hasten to the spot. They seize the
invaders with their pseudopodia, engulf them in their body-substance,
enter lymphatic vessels, and are rolled away by the lymph-stream. The
instinct which brings them in ever-increasing numbers to the breach
in the protecting skin can be explained only in terms of force. From
our own conscious action to the causes which determine the movements
of a leucocyte, or of an amœba, is so deep a drop that we prefer
to recognize in the latter a merely chemical attractive force.
“Chemiotaxis” we term the influence which draws leucocytes to the place
where food is abundant; although it is also the place, one must admit,
where in the interests of the body as a whole they run great risk of
asphyxiation. It is appetite which draws a schoolboy to a bun-shop; a
sense of duty prompts a fireman to risk his life in a chamber filled
with smoke. We have no desire to humanize a leucocyte; but it is
difficult to emphasize too strongly its independence. It would be
absurd to use terms which imply that a leucocyte has a self-directive
power; yet it is equally misleading to describe its migration to
the seat of injury, its retreat with ingested germs to a lymphatic
gland, its wriggling from the lymph-ways of the gland into the shelter
of its adenoid tissue, in terms which imply that the forces which
direct it are known, and their mode of action understood. The success
which attends the inroads of germs is due to their amazing capacity
for multiplication when they reach lymph or blood. It is useless to
attempt to form an idea of the rapidity with which they divide, since
we have no data upon which to base calculations. If the leucocytes
fail to deal with the first few that enter, germs soon swarm within
the lymph-vessels. This leads to an inflammation of the walls of the
vessels, which may then be seen as red lines beneath the skin. These
red lines lead upwards towards the nearest lymphatic gland. The glands
in the space behind the knee are not usually affected when the focus of
infection is in the foot. The red lines can be traced up the inner side
of the knee and the front and inner side of the thigh to the groin. The
glands in this situation swell until they can be easily felt. If the
mischief is in the hand, the gland at the elbow may be affected, but
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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