On the Digestive Action of Leucocytes, Pus and Body Exudates

1. Eighty-seven specimens of septic pus obtained from patients suffering from recent and old infections were examined fully bacteriologically and cytologically and were sterilised at 60° C. for 2 or 4 hours. The heated samples of pus were used for our experiments.2. Glycerine extracts were prepared of the pus by two methods referred to in detail in the text.3. The digestive action of the samples of sterile pus and of their glycerine extracts were tested on inspissated blood serum, gelatin, milk, egg and hydrocele saline. Digestion occurred on all these media in varying degrees with the specimens of pus, but glycerine extracts were more active.4. It was found that the addition of pus or glycerine extracts of pus with various strains of Bacillus typhosus, B. paratyphosus A, B and C, B. gaertner and B. shiga to milk, produced clotting of the medium at 37° C. in the majority of our experiments.5. If pus was heated at 60° C. for as long as 6 hours its digestive manifestations were not affected, but 80° C. for 20 min. or 100° C. for 10 min. completely destroyed the digestive activity.6. At 22° C. the digestive action of pus was weakly manifested, while in the ice chest no reaction whatever took place.7. Clotting of the medium occurred when pus was added to killed growths of B. typhosus and B. paratyphosus A in milk, but not with B. paratyphosus B or B. gaertner.8. Human milk did not clot with pus and these organisms.9. A large number of observations were made with serum exudates from pus, either after filtering through a Seitz E.K. filter or after heating at 60° C. It was found that the filtered or heated fluids might have a similar or a weaker action as compared with pus, or they might be inhibitory.10. The white cells from several cases of chronic myeloid leukaemia, chronic lymphatic, the myeloblastic termination of chronic myeloid and acute leukaemia, were examined in the same manner as pus. The cells of chronic myeloid leukaemia acted in every way like pus, those of chronic lymphatic and their glycerine extracts were quite inactive; those of acute leukaemia corresponded to chronic lymphatic, while those of a myeloblastic termination gave a weak digestive reaction.11. Specimens of blood serum from normal human beings and from patients with acute infections, and some specimens of body fluids before and after filtering, were found to inhibit the clotting of milk inoculated with pus and the microbes.12. Twenty-two specimens of tuberculous pus obtained from abscesses and from pyo-pneumothorax, and seven samples of tuberculous sputum, were examined fully, but with special reference to their cytology.In eight cases the pus showed no digestive action and no clotting of milk with the microbes, in nine cases a feeble reaction occurred, and in five cases the reactions were like those of pyogenic pus. Thus seventeen of the specimens could bedistinguished readily from pyogenic pus; in the five positive specimens polymorphs were numerous, but one of these cases was complicated by a secondary infection. In every sample of tuberculous sputum polymorphs and tubercle bacilli were numerous and the reactions corresponded to those of pyogenic pus.