22 JOURNAL OF THE [April, 



fication of prevailing views respecting the relation of cell-wall 

 to cell-contents, and contended for a higher position for that 

 part of the cell corresponding to the protoplasm of von Mohl, 

 * * * * and showed how a careful study of the phenomena 

 presented by the pseudopodia, extended by the various Rhizo- 

 pods, might aid in clearing up the life of the elements of the 

 cell. He also defined the cell as protoplasm surrounding a 

 nucleus."'" 



Now the cell-wall ceases to occupy attention. Henceforth 

 the contention is over the nucleus. Briicke attacked it in this 

 same year and undertook to show that it has a very doubtful 

 existence in the realm of cryptogamic botany, provided, as he 

 naively remarks, we " do not start out with the belief that the 

 nucleus is there even though we do not see it." The discovery 

 of non-nucleated protozoa, soon after extended the same 

 skepticism to the animal kingdom ; and so the way was prepared 

 for Beale's theory, which was then announced. Its basis was 

 laid in some preliminary publications in i860 ; but it was more 

 formally expounded in 1861, in a series of lectures delivered at 

 the Royal College of Physicians. Still later, it was further 

 elaborated in ten lectures given at King's College." 



The substance of his theory, as set forth in these lectures, is 

 that every living being, from the simplest to the highest and 

 most complex, is composed partly of a semi-fluid, granular 

 material and partly of more solid tissues ; that the tissues are 

 formed from the granular material ; that the granular material 

 is always within, the formed material on the outside of an 

 elementary part ; that the granular material alone is concerned 

 in the operations of growth, nutrition, and development, — alone 

 possess the power of selecting pabulum ; that pabulum is worn- 

 out tissue ; and that therefore there are but two kinds of sub- 

 stances in every organism, namely, germinal matter and formed 

 material : — the former always alive, the latter always dead. 



He tells us that " the germinal matter which is formed in the 

 nerves or muscles of any of the higher animals cannot be dis- 

 tinguished from the germinal matter in the tissues of the leaf of 

 a plant, or from that which exists in the particles of the lowest 



»• "The Cell Doctrine." P. 80. 



*' "On the Structure and Growth of the Tissues, and on Life." London, 1865. 



