10 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE, [VOL. II. 



the extravagances of single-value men, two (and no more) values 

 men, trade and labor union men, citizens of the world, professional 

 negrophilists, soft-money men, and the like : they could delude them- 

 selves, and obtain more or less following for their " views," so long as 

 sober, practical men of common sense governed affairs, and peace with 

 honor and prosperity prevailed. But let the cyclones of panic and war, 

 a Dakota-like change of climate and its attendant famine, or even the 

 milder consequence of reckless municipal government (as did happen in 

 Hamilton only one generation ago) once set in, and all was changed. 

 Capital either became a tyrant, or, cowering, shrank away. Mr. Douglass*^ 

 despised "commodities " of food and raiment became treasures beyond 

 price ; the crescendo of land values he affected, but only affected, to envy 

 the possessors of real estate, became a diminuendo, with a pianissimo 

 carefully to be underscored at the end; while as for the theories so melli- 

 fluously laid before the Institute that night — they were laid by until the 

 tide should turn again. 



THIRD MEETING. 



Third Meeting, 15th November, 1890, the Vice-President in the chair. 



Donations and exchanges, 33. 



Dr. A. B. Macallum, in a paper on " Cell Structure and Cell Contents,"" 

 referred briefly to the already known details of cell structures and the 

 phenomena of cell division, and then gave an account of his studies on 

 the epithelial cells of the intestine and on the cells of the pancreas of 

 amphibia. In these cells a number of bodies arc present in addition to 

 the ordinary cell contents, and they may, according to their nature and 

 origin, be classified as follows : — (i) parasites ; (2) the remains of broken- 

 down cells swallowed by their healthy neighbours ; (3) plasmosomata 

 extruded from the nucleus. In connection with the first class (parasites), 

 the history of a new form of great interest was described. There is 

 also present in the pancreatic cells of all cold-blooded vertebrates a 

 round, oval, or elongated element situated beside the cell nucleus of a 

 peculiar character, which, from its fibrillation and phases of degeneration, 

 must be a parasite analogous to the forms which cause malaria in the 

 human subject. They are absent from many of the amphibia altogether^ 

 and this is another argument for the view that they are parasitic. The 

 new parasite discovered by Dr. Macallum has one stage in its develop- 

 ment which resembles closely the body in the pancreatic cells, and if 

 the latter is a parasite its degeneration and destruction in the pancreatic 



