spores, 71.11 fh a Spore Glossary. 261 



it may have lain for thousands of years, and before it can repro- 

 duce itself, it becomes dead, or passive matter ; for a spore is a 

 cell, changed for the purpose of reproduction, and when that 

 purpose is accomplished, its life, as an independent being, enters 

 into new conditions. It is no longer a spore, but a part of the 

 new organism, as a grain of wheat that has entered into the brain 

 structure of an animal is no longer a grain of wheat, but nerve 

 tissue. 



A spore is the starting point of cell growth, although a simple 

 cell may, in many cases, answer the same purpose without passing 

 into the spore transformation. However, the spore structure is 

 better adapted for the preservation and the continuance of life. 

 It is a more securely sealed package, often containing many little 

 packages in one enclosure. It is sealed, that it may better pre- 

 serve and favor the transportation of life. Whilst a cell, or other 

 organism, endowed with life would quickly perish by exposure to 

 heat, cold, moisture, dryness or other unfavorable surroundings, 

 a spore has greater persistence, as oft and well-tested experiments 

 of Pasteur, Tyndall and others have shown. " It is a grave error 

 to confuse the germs of infusions," (turnip, cucumber, &;c.) says 

 Tyndall "with the adult forms. Heat destroyed the adult organ- 

 isms, but the germs from which they sprang were comparatively 

 indestructible." 



I may say here that the word spore is used in this paper in its 

 most comprehensive sense, as applied to all organisms synonymous 

 with germ or seed. A spore may be a germ without protoplasm, 

 without a nucleus or a cell-wall. According to Lionel Beale, it 

 may be a bit of "bioplasm" or "living matter." But we cannot 

 conceive of "bioplasm" without a seed, or sowing. Every spore 

 presupposes a parent body, or as Rudolph Virchow expresses it : 

 "Where a cell arises, there a cell must have previously existed 

 {0//inis celhila e ailiila), just as an animal can spring only from an 

 animal, a plant only from a plant." Furthermore, this seed in 

 bioplasm, which is the life of the plasm, will produce an organism 

 like the parent. It may be a simple cell — nothing more, or the 

 most complex structure of plant or animal. 



The simplest form of life, then, is a cell ; and the simplest 

 manifestations of life is the action of the matter in that cell. 



And when I assert that a cell, which we can all see, with or 

 without the aid of the microscope, has the two essentials of 

 continuous growth, a nervous and a secretory system, I assert nothing 



