148 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



textures of which the organs are composed. . . . 

 A nutritive centre, anatomically considered, is merely 

 a cell, the nucleus of which is the permanent source of 

 successive broods of young cells/ 



But later still, Virchow announced l views which 

 have had an immense influence on pathological doc- 

 trines throughout all the schools of medicine, and 

 wherever biological studies have been cultivated. He, 

 too, maintains that c the cell is really the ultimate 

 morphological unit in which there is any manifesta- 

 tion of life, and that we must not transfer the seat of 

 real action to any point beyond the cell-.' But then he 

 denies altogether the origin of cells de novo in blaste- 

 mata taking place after the fashion described by Schlei- 

 den. He holds that cells can be produced only from 

 or by pre-existing cells. And, moreover, he does not 

 attempt to prove that the whole bulk of the tissues is 

 made up exclusively of cells j he admits the existence 

 of a large amount of intercellular material in many 

 tissues, and so, in order to reconcile this fact with his 

 previous doctrine, he is compelled to put forward the 

 hypothesis that such intercellular material may be 

 broken up into imaginary c cell territories,' each of 

 which c is ruled 3 over by the cell which lies in the 



1 ' Cellular Pathologic,' 1858. 



2 Translation by Chance, 1859, p. 3. 



This is like a degradation of the old ' archaeus ' or vital principle. 

 Instead of one monarch holding his court in the stomach, this doctrine 

 would give us an incalculable number of potentates holding their sway 

 in cells over 'cell territories.' 



