Phagocytosis

Abstract

PHAGOCYTOSIS, the process whereby single cells internalize objects that they encounter, is a matter of survival for primitive unicellular organisms, which use it to gain nourishment. Nearly a century ago Metchnikoff deduced that phagocytic cells protected higher creatures from assault by the ubiquitous microorganisms in the internal and external environment, and championed the cause of phagocytosis as the basis of survival against pyogenic infection.¹ Metchnikoff's crusade provoked opposition from the proponents of humoral mechanisms of host protection, but from this controversy arose the realization that humoral factors and phagocytes co-operate,² a concept popularized by George Bernard Shaw in The Doctor's . . .