Abstract
In a recent publication concerning the physiological destruction of erythrocytes, Kyes (1) has shown that certain endothelial cells of the liver and spleen are constantly active in phagocytosing red blood corpuscles from the circulating blood stream and to the fixed-tissue phagocytes so functioning, he gives the designation “hemophages.”
In a subsequent communication concerning the natural immunity of the pigeon to the pneumococcus, the same author (2) points out that under experimental conditions, the hemophages are not only phagocytic for red blood corpuscles but also for pneumococci introduced into the circulating blood stream. Indeed, so rapid and so extensive is the phagocytic destruction of injected pneumococci by the hemophages of the pigeon, that Kyes concludes that this mode of elimination of the organisms from the blood stream is largely responsible for the high resistance which the pigeon displays to pneumococcus infection.
