CONCLUSION 



need more and more to supplement that histology of normal 

 and pathological states which although it suffices for dia- 

 gnosis nevertheless remains the study of tissues — and more 

 often of organs — by most exhaustive study of the minute 

 structure of every single type of human cell both in its 

 normal and in its every available pathological state. 



The study in every type of cell of its ground-substance — 

 i.e., of the protoplasm minus the inclusions and the products 

 of metabolism — may win a new understanding of the func- 

 tions of the liver, the kidney, the gut, the pancreas, etc. 

 Extension of the descriptions of the ectoplasm in these 

 various cells given by the older medical histologists may 

 serve for a closer correlation of structure and function in 

 health and disease. In spite of the view that cancer, for 

 example, is caused by external agents and that purely micro- 

 scopic investigations here are fruitless, nevertheless it may 

 be a problem intrinsic to the cell. In oedema, forms of 

 nephritis and all other pathological states in which the 

 balance of water is disturbed, careful microscopic investi- 

 gation aiming at the fullest possible description of the 

 minutiae in the cell is called for. The white blood-cells used 

 every day in the diagnosis of disease have not been suffi- 

 ciently investigated beyond diagnostic needs; studies made 

 by means of new methods of cell fixation and staining might 

 yield results that would throw additional light on the 

 changes both in number and in quality which white blood- 

 cells show in various human diseases. In these three prob- 

 lems of medicine are strong indications that the ectoplasm 

 is involved. 



From consideration of the theory of the ectoplasm as a 

 working principle in the attack of general problems in 

 biology and its application to problems in medicine, let 

 us turn to its philosophical implications. 



Biology being limited to protoplasmic organization and 

 not being able to go below it without that life is destroyed, 



365 



