Quotation from: Manual of Surgery

Written by: Alexander Miles and Alexis Thomson


#Immunity.#--Some persons are insusceptible to infection by certain
diseases, from which they are said to enjoy a _natural immunity_. In
many acute diseases one attack protects the patient, for a time at
least, from a second attack--_acquired immunity_.


_Phagocytosis._--In the production of immunity the leucocytes and
certain other cells play an important part in virtue of the power they
possess of ingesting bacteria and of destroying them by a process of
intra-cellular digestion. To this process Metchnikoff gave the name of
_phagocytosis_, and he recognised two forms of _phagocytes_: (1) the
_microphages_, which are the polymorpho-nuclear leucocytes of the blood;
and (2) the _macrophages_, which include the larger hyaline leucocytes,
endothelial cells, and connective-tissue corpuscles.

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