Trans. N. V. Ac. Scz. 30 Nov. 21, 



■" bioplasson." Of these four synonymous terms, " protoplasm " is the 

 one best known ; but has been used in other senses, as well as to 

 designate merely elementary living matter. I therefore think that 

 " bioplasson " is to be preferred. Of course, dead bioplassou is a 

 contradiction in terms : bioplasson deprived of vitality is no longer 

 bioplasson at all, but merely the chemical remains of what once was 

 bioplasson. If this be remembered, there will be no confusion, even 

 if the word be used in describing tissues, etc., after death. According 

 to Drysdale, Dr. John Fletcher of Edinburgh was the first, who clearly 

 arrived at the conclusion that " it is only in virtue of a specially living 

 matter, universally diffused and intimately interwoven with its texture, 

 that any tissue or part possesses vitality." 



As Fletcher's work was published in 1835, several years before even 

 the establishment of the cell-doctrine, we cannot but agree so far with 

 Drysdale as to say that Fletcher has framed a " hypothesis of the ana- 

 tomical nature of the living matter which anticipates in a remarkable 

 manner" its discovery! In 1850, Cohn' recognized the protoplasm "as 

 the contractile element, and as what gives to the zoospore the faculty of 

 altering its figure, without any corresponding change in volume." He 

 concludes that protoplasm " must be regarded as the prime seat of 

 almost all vital activity, but especially of all the motile phenomena in the 

 interior of the cell." In 1853, Huxley^ said, "vitality, (the faculty, that 

 is, of exhibiting definite cycles of change in form and composition), is a 

 property inherent in certain kinds of matter." In 1856, Lord Osborne 

 discovered carmine staining, and distinguished, by means of coloring it, 

 the living formative matter from the formed material, a means which 

 has borne important fruits in the discovery of Cohnheim's staining of 

 living matter by gold chloride, and in that of Recklinghausen's staining 

 all except living matter by silver nitrate. 



In 1858, and in a number of later articles,^ Max Schultze, by showing 

 that, as had been hypothetically supposed by Unger, the movements of 

 the pseudopodia and the granules are really produced by active contrac- 

 tile movements of the protoplasm, as well as by other observations, 

 contributed much to the establishment of the theory of living matter. 

 Haeckel has also for many years, and in various publications,* labored to 



1 " Nachtrage zur Naturgeschichte des Protococcus pliivialis." Nova acta Acad. Leop.- 

 CaroL., vol. xxii, part i, p. 605. 



""Review of the Cell-theory." British and Foreign Medico-chirurg. Nez'ic'w, Oct.,* 

 1853. 



' " Ueber innere Bewegungs-Erscheinungen bei Diatomeen," Mailers ArckiT^ 1858, p. 

 330 ; " Ueber Cornuspira," .4rchiz> f. Naiitrgesch.., i860, p. 287 ; " Ueber Muskelkbrperchen 

 und das was man eine Zelle zu nennen habe," Reichert iind Du Bois-Reyntotid'' s Archiv.^ 

 1861, p. I ; Das Protoplasma der Rhizopoden und der Pflanzenzellen, Leipzig, 1S63. 



* Monographie der Radiolarien. 1862, pp. 8g, iifi ; " Ueber den Sarcodekiirper der Rhizo- 

 poden," Zeitsch. /. IVissensch. ZoUiogie, 1865, p. 342; Generelle Morphologie, vol. i, pp. 

 269, 289. 



