The proportion of eosinophiles in the blood of children is greater than in that of adults.
Increase of both eosinophiles and mast cells is found in myelogenous leucaemia.
An eosinophilia tends to appear following splenectomy. With a Wright stain showing acid tendencies one may count polymorphonuclears as eosinophiles unless noting smaller size of granules.
Leucocytosis
It is to an increase in the polymorphonuclears that this term is usually applied, the term lymphocytosis or eosinophilia being employed where white cells of eosinophile or lymphocyte nature are increased. We have physiological leucocytosis in the latter weeks of pregnancy, also in the new-born, and in connection with digestion.
Pathological Leucocytosis.—Pneumonia. In this disease we have a leucocytosis of 20,000 to 30,000 or higher. The eosinophiles are almost absent. A normal leucocyte count in pneumonia makes a prognosis unfavorable.
The leucocyte count drops about the time of the crisis, and with the reappearance of eosinophiles is a favorable sign.
Toxaemic conditions as uraemia, diabetic coma and poisoning by CO2 tend to show a leucocytosis.
Septic processes. The leucocyte count is of great value, especially when we obtain a leucocytosis with 80 to 90% of polymorphonuclears, as in appendicitis, cholecystitis, or other suppurative conditions. A marked leucocytosis is of diagnostic importance in acute ulcerative endocarditis provided it is not fulminant in type.
According to Cabot, leucocytosis varies in infections as follows: