Tissue Consumption of Granulocytes and Control Mechanisms for Granulopoiesis

Abstract

The reader in search of hard scientific information would do well to skip this chapter altogether, because it is constructed from a few wattles of established fact and large quantities of speculative daub. It was shown in the last chapter that enormous numbers of neutrophils are produced in the marrow, enter the bloodstream, and rapidly leave the blood for the tissues. Intuitively, one would suppose that their function was to combat bacterial infections, and that the cells would emigrate chiefly from blood vessels in those areas of the body where large bacterial populations are normally carried. If this were so, there should be heavy emigration of labeled neutrophils into the mouth, the gastrointestinal tract, the upper airway, and perhaps the skin, and very little into normally sterile areas, such as the brain and skeletal muscle. How far does the available evidence support this picture?