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[December 
Ill 
Cell or Corpuscle ? 
NE of the youngest and most vigorous among the sciences is 
that which has been named Cytology. 
Its strength, in all probability, is due to the fact that it has’ 
sprung from a broad foundation, and that it still rests, not upon one, 
but many pillars of support. The botanist, the zoologist, the physi- 
ologist, divergent from one another as their daily walks unfortunately 
are, yet agree to join hands over the common basis of their sciences 
—the organic cell. 
With such splendid results already gathered into its encompass 
and with the hope and promise of such a brilliant future before it, it 
is all the more to be regretted that the language of Cytology is not 
only in contradiction to common sense, but att that it must assuredly 
lead to endless perplexities. 
The word cell, the very watchword of the science, is one that in 
this mouth means one thing, in that quite another. 
Dealing with the lower plants, the botanist will speak of the 
‘swarmspores’ as cells, whilst when he turns to the phanerogams 
he will apply the same term to the elements of cork or sclerenchyma, 
notwithstanding the fact that the former consist of protoplasm and 
nucleus without a cell wall, whilst the latter are composed of cell 
walls without either protoplasm or nucleus. 
Such inexactitude as this, such a want of definite expression, 
must hang as a burden around the neck of the science, impeding its 
progress at every turn. 
“More especially is it from the side of the student of vegetable 
life that this confusion is felt, the zoologist, although he uses the 
word cell in a sense which stands in flat ‘contradiction to its every- 
day meaning, yet attaches a significance to it which is clear and 
precise in his own mind. 
However desirable, therefore, it may be for a more common sense 
terminology to be introduced into zoology as well as botany, it is not 
absolutely essential for scientific advance. When it is remembered 
also that any change of nomenclature in this respect must involve 
with difficulties the immense mass of zoological literature which has 
gathered together since 1839, it should make us pause before we 
suggest giving up the word cell, in the zoological sense, in favour of 
energid or biophor. 
