STUDIES ON ENDOTHELIAL REACTIONS : III. THE ENDOTHELIUM IN EXPERIMENTAL PULMONARY TUBERCULOSIS.
1. The injection of a colloidal suspension, or sol, of carbon into the veins of a living animal, as recommended by McJunkin, furnishes an apparently reliable means of tracing the so called epithelioid cell of the pulmonary tubercle from its origin in the vascular endothelium to the lesion. 2. Experimental tubercles are formed in the lung, as in the liver, primarily by cells originating in the capillary endothelium. These cells are probably present in small numbers in the normal lung, lying free both in the alveolar wall and the air vesicles. In response to infection they proliferate in the capillary walls in the vicinity of the invading organisms, migrate in steadily increasing numbers, and, arriving at the site of the infection, further multiply and to some extent fuse to form the syncytia known as giant cells. 3. The epithelial cell takes no active part in the process; its proliferation tends to repair denuded surfaces and is regenerative rather than combative or phagocytic in nature. This cell is free from carbon and stains only diffusely with carmine, in contradistinction to the endothelial cell which readily takes up both pigments in granular form. 4. The cells of endothelial origin not only phagocytose tubercle bacilli, but carry them into the tissues, for example into lymph nodes, by way of the lymphatics, or into other lung lobules by way of the air passages, in which they are readily demonstrable.
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Department of Comparative Pathology, George Fabyan Foundation, Harvard Medical School, Boston.