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body, and at every period of life ; and that these small particles, having passed 

 through the cell wall, made their way to the reproductive organs collected there, 

 and combined to form an ovum or a spermatozoon. Not only did white blood 

 corpuscles pass out of the vessels, but red ones also. But surely every one 

 would admit that there was a great difference between the case of a white blood 

 corpuscle passing through the vascular wall and the supposed passage of a par- 

 ticle of living matter through a cell wall many times thicker than the wali of 

 the vessel, and in some cases very hard and dense. When the capillaries are 

 distended their walls are stretched, and longitudinal rents or fissures result, 

 through which blood corpuscles might escape. This point could be proved by 

 artificial injection. With regard to the passage of the corpuscles from the 

 capillaries, it must be borne in mind that the fact had been observed both by 

 Dr. Addison and Dr. Waller long before Cohnheim wrote j while he (Dr. Beale) 

 had demonstrated the passage of minute particles of living matter through the 

 capillary walls before 1863.* One very important difference between his and 

 Cohnheim's view consisted in this, that whereas Cohnheim's doctrine implied 

 that every pus-corpuscle formed was once a white blood corpuscle, he felt sure 

 that the pus-corpuscles grew and multiplied in the manner he had described, 

 because he had seen some of the steps of the process. Probably one gmall 

 particle of the living matter might produce multitudes of pus-corpuscles in a 

 short space of time. He need only say there was a very serious objection to the 

 theory of the pus-corpuscle being a white blood corpuscle that had traversed the 

 vascular walls from the blood. If the number of the pus-corpuscles formed in an 

 abcess in the course of 24 hours were estimated, it would be found to be greater 

 than that of the white blood corpuscles existing in the whole body at the time. 

 Reverting to the theory of Pangenesis, held by Mr. Darwin, and which Mr. Lowne 

 had brought under the notice of the Club, he would not, of course, venture 

 upon the profitless task of trying to upset that or any other favourite hypothesis 

 advanced in the present day to explain facts of nature. All he could hope to dc 

 was to convince them that it was very improbable that the hypothesis in ques- 

 tion would turn out to be correct. Taking into consideration the great thick- 

 ness of the walls through which the living particles, according to the hypothesis 

 of Pangenesis, must pass, and the difficulty of conceiving how such particles 

 would find their way with unerring precision to their point of destination, and 

 the nature of the forces which would cause them to combine and form a minute 

 p rticle of living matter, having the powers the sperm and germ are known to 

 possess, he thought the idea not only a most fanciful one, incapable like many 

 other fanciful ideas of scientific refutation, but absolutely destitute of the sup- 

 port of scientific evidence. Moreover, the author of the hypothesis had not 

 discussed in detail the actual changes which he supposed actually occurred. 

 His ideas of "cells" appeared thoroughly vague and ill defined. It seemed to 

 him (Dr. Beale) very unreasonable that in order that we might accept the hypo- 

 thesis of Pangenesis, we should be called upon to ignore the almost insuperable 

 objections that might be advanced against it, and the same remark would ap- 

 ply to many a modern hypothesis. Who could believe that the processes alluded 

 to were really going on in every cell, in every part of the organism, and at 

 every period of life ? The view was improbable, and the more the details were 

 considered the more improbable it appeared. At the same time that he thought 

 the doctrine improbable, he would not deny its possibility ; and his object, in- 



* " On the Germinal Matter of the Blood." Trans. Micr. Soc, 18G3. 



