18 JOURNAL OF THE [April, 



known by this name nor recognized for what it was afterwards 

 seen to be. As early as 1755 Rosenhof described pretty clearly 

 and correctly the curious phenomena of vitality as manifested in 

 the movements of the " proteus animalcule" and seventeen 

 years later Corti published his observations on the rotation in the 

 cells of Chara. The similar process in Vallisneria was made 

 known by Meyen in 1827, and in 1831 Robert Brown was over- 

 awing Charles Darwin with that " little secret," which proved 

 to be his newly discovered cyclosis in the filaments of 

 Tradescantia. 



About the time that Corti was studying the formative material 

 in Chara, Wolff, according to Professor Huxley, was trying to 

 demonstrate, with reference to the higher animals, that " every 

 organ is composed, at first, of a mass of clear, viscous, nutritive 

 fluid, which possesses no organization of any kind, but is, at 

 most, composed of globules."* 



In 1835 Dujardin put forth his celebrated memoirs on the 

 Foraminifera, in which he called attention to the " substance 

 animale primaire," of which they are composed, which he 

 described as " une sorte de mucus doue du mouvement spontane 

 et de la contractilite," and to which he. gave the name ^^ sarcode." 



But according to Doctor Drysdale, Doctor Fletcher, of Edin- 

 burgh, is entitled to the credit of first having given the coup de 

 grace to " the old hypothesis of a vital spirit, or essence, or 

 principle as the cause of life," and of having framed a new 

 theory " of the anatomical nature of the living matter which 

 anticipates, in a remarkable manner, the discovery of the pro- 

 toplasmic theory of life." In support of this claim we are 

 referred to Doctor Fletcher's "Rudiments of Physiology," pub- 

 lished in 1835, in which it was argued (i.) ''that there can be 

 no central vital influence communicable to the parts and domi- 

 nating them, for the vitality of each must be inherent in itself, 

 and, as a property of the material compound, cannot be trans- 

 ferred to the smallest distance ; each part, organ, and even cell, 

 therefore, possesses a quasi-independent life, and they are all 

 bound together to form an individual merely by the ties of a 

 central nervous system and common circulation, or some similar 



1 "The Cell 'Theory." By Thomas H. Huxley. Brit, and For. Med. and Chir. 

 Review, October, 1853. 



