Osler and the black corpuscles: profiles of three early students of phagocytosis.

The discovery of phagocytosis is associated indelibly with Elie Metchnikoff, who coined the term, but more than 30 persons had observed the phenomenon (or inferred its existence) before Metchnikoff came to dominate the field. Two of these early investigators were William Osler and George Miller Sternberg. Osler recognized carbon particles within the phagocytes of patients with miner's lung and carried out experiments in kittens. Sternberg only theorized about phagocytosis but, unlike Osler, bitterly contested Metchnikoff's priority of discovery.