Vitality and Organization of Protoplasm. 63 



of epithelium. Neither white nor red blood -corpuscles are autonomous 

 cellular beings, and as siich really independently alive. The amoeboid 

 motions of the -wdiitc corpuscles are not genuine vital motions. To this 

 conclusion I arrived long ago on the strength of numerous observations 

 and experiments.* This may suffice at present to characterize my view 

 of the functional import of the nucleus. As to the specific role attrib- 

 uted to it in mitotic division, it will be examined when fertilization 

 comes to be discussed. 



The principal ontogenetic results gained by experiments with the 

 eggs of many kinds of organic beings, and no doubt essentially applica- 

 ble to ontogenetic evolution in general, can, I think, be deduced from 

 the recognition of the cardinal fact, the egg-plasm is a chemical frag- 

 ment of the organism from which it is derived. A chemical fragment 

 of the egg-plasm must necessarily possess a definite chemical constitu- 

 tion, an intimate "molecular" organization, which strictly predeter- 

 mines the structure of the progressive stages of ontogenetic evolution, 

 or, what is the same thing, the stages of its chemical reintegration. But 

 this definite normal constitution of the egg-plasm as a whole, when 

 upset or disrupted, its complete living substance, or parts of it, suffer- 

 ing thereby additional disintegration, necessarily falls — as has been 

 shown to be the case with the disintegrated protoplasm in general — inttj 

 different chemical equilibration, forming thus a new and different chem- 



*In a paper read before the Royal Society of London, December 20, 1866, 

 I showed that the nuclei of various kinds of epithelium furnished under different 

 conditions what were known as white bloodcorpuscles, granulative corpuscles, 

 mucous corpuscles, and puscorpuscles. And on the strength of these and other 

 observations I said in "Mind," No. XX, p. 486 : "As regards the autonomous 

 vitality of organic elements, the white bloodcorpuscles have had chief stress laid 

 on them. The white bloodcorpuscles of which red bloodcorpuscles are trans- 

 formations, perform amoeboid movements. What more striking proof of the 

 separate vitality of each single cell could be found, than the displaj'^ of motility 

 on the part of its protoplasm? Nevertheless these movements are not vital 

 movements, but merely the eflfeet of a chemical metamosphosis of protoplasm. 

 Yoimg infusoria under unfavorable conditions are sometimes unable to main- 

 tain their surface-equilibration. They are then transformed into amoeboid be- 

 ings, the substance of which gradually declines in molecular constitution till, 

 at last, all activity ceases. A white bloodcorpuscle forms originally an inte- 

 grant part of an organic tissue. It is then detached from it, and left to attain 

 chemical equilibration in a new and constantly changing medium. In some an- 

 nelids the inner surface of the entoderm, the surface forming one of the walls 

 of the perivisceral cavity, is seen during digestion to become densely crowded 

 with large refractive granules. Irregular flakes composed of such granules held 

 together by a viscid hyaline protoplasm, detach themselves and float about in 

 the perivisceral cavity, constituting primitive bloodcurpuscles, and displaying 

 amoeboid movements. This I have watched numbers of times." "Tlie Idood- 

 corpuscle does not maintain its structural integrity, on the contrary, it is trans- 

 formed from a lymph-corpuscle into a red bloodcorpuscle, and, after having spent 

 its store of chemical efficacy, is soon eliminated as effete matter. Its amoeboid 

 movements are not due to any vital play with the medium, but are simply move- 

 ments accompanying its career of chemical transformation. In pus-corpuscles 

 even the myeline-nature of the projections can be sometimes detected with the 

 help of the polariscope. The most perfect movements of the kind I have ever 

 witnessed were displayed by pus artificially derived from the epithelium of an 

 eye macerated in serum for forty-eight hours at a temperature of 96 F. 



