The phagocytosis of red blood-cells

Abstract

It has been shown by Savtschenko, that when an animal has received injections of red blood-cells, its serum (inactivated by heating) causes the appearance of phagocytosis in vitro when leucocytes and red blood-cells of the kind used for injection are added, and the whole maintained at the temperature of the body. This action is attributed by Savtschenko to the action on the red blood-cells of amboceptor (immunisine, fixateur) contained in the serum employed. In order to obtain further information respecting the factors which determine phagocytosis in vitro of red blood-cells, a comparative examination of the action of sera of animals nearly related to, and widely separated from, those supplying the erythrocytes used for injection was undertaken. This investigation confirmed the above observation, that leucocytes placed in the inactivated serum of injected animals ingested red blood-cells of the kind used for injection. In the course of this investigation, however, it was found that phagocytosis could be brought about by the serum of the injected animals when the serum was free from amboceptor, for the red blood-cells injected, as the following experiment shows.