???? The phagocytes absorb morbid matter, poisons or microorganisms by enveloping them with their own bodies. It is a hand-to- hand fight, and many of the brave little soldiers are destroyed by the poisons and bacteria which they attack and swallow. What we call pus is made up of the bodies of live and dead phagocytes, disease taints and germs, blood serum, broken-down tissues and cells, in short, the debris of the battlefield.
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????? The organism has still other ways and means of defending itself. At the time of bacterial infection, certain germ-killing substances are developed in the blood serum. Science has named these defensive proteins alexins. It has also been found that the phagocyte and tissue cells in the neighborhood of the area of irritation produce antipoisons or natural antitoxins, which neutralize the bacterial poisons and kill the microorganisms of disease.
