PROTOPLASM 



the liver, kidney, and other glands, hardening, shrinking, 

 and wasting of the muscular, nervous, and other tissues, are 

 good examples of the second. The amount of change 

 becomes less and less as the morbid state advances, the 

 whole organ wastes, the secreting structure shrinks, and at 

 last inactive connective tissue alone marks the seat where 

 most active and energetic changes once occurred. It is easy 

 to see how such a substance as alcohol must tend to restrict 

 the rapid multiplication of the cells when the process is 

 too active, and how it would tend to promote the advance 

 of disease in organs where rapid change in the cells charac- 

 terizes the normal state. 



These considerations lead us to conclude that the rate 

 of growth of cells in disease may be accelerated or retarded 

 by an alteration in the character of the pabulum which is 

 transmitted to them, and with the view of influencing these 

 changes we shall naturally search for remedies which have 

 the property of rendering tissues more or less permeable 

 to nutrient fluids, or which alter the character of the fluid 

 itself. Such considerations have a very important bearing 

 upon the practical treatment of disease. 



Many of the so-called tonics have the property of 

 coagulating albuminous fluids and solutions of extractive 

 matters. Preparations containing tannin, the mineral salts, 

 such as the sulphate and sesquichloride of iron, nitric and 

 hydrochloric acids, and a host of other remedies that will 

 occur to every one, possess this property, and render solu- 

 tions containing these and allied substances less permeable, 

 perhaps by increasing their viscidity. The favourable action 

 of such remedies is probably due to their direct influence 

 on the fluid constituents of the blood. They, no doubt, 



