MEMOIRS. 



Bioplasm, and its Degradation ; with Observations on 

 the Origin of Contagious Disease. By Lionel S. 

 Be ALE, M.B., F.R.S., Fellow of the Royal College of 

 Physicians ; Physician to King's College Hospital. With 

 Plates XI, XII, XIII, XIV. 



Hitherto I have employed tlie simple term germinal or 

 living matter, to denote that matter which takes part in the 

 formation of all living beings and their tissues and organs ; 

 but the term is lengthy, and in some respects perhaps 

 awkward and inconvenient. It cannot be used alone when 

 speaking of a single particle, nor can it be employed adjec- 

 tively. The word " protoplasm " has been much used for 

 some years past, but the vagueness attached to it rendei's it 

 unfitted for employment here. I require a word to denote 

 living, forming, growing, self-producing matter, as distinguished 

 from matter in every other state or condition whatever. Now 

 " protoplasm " has been applied, both in this country and in 

 Germany, to lifeless matter as well as to living matter, to 

 formed matter and tissue as well as to the formative matter. 

 And more recently Prof. Huxley and others have added to 

 the confusion by giving it a still wdder signification — so 

 very wide, indeed, that almost anything that ever formed 

 part of an organism may, according to their view, be 

 denominated protoplasm. Dead matter and living matter, 

 and roast mutton, boiled as well as unboiled white of Q^%, 

 and a number of other things, moist and dry, having struc- 

 ture and structureless, alive and dead, are said to be proto- 

 plasm, so that the word ceases to be distinctive of matter in 

 any particular state. It becomes, in fact, useless. 



The name I propose to give to the living, or germinal self- 

 increasing matter of living beings, and to restrict to this, is 

 Bioplasm {(iiog, life; irXaafxa, plasma). Now that the word 

 Biology has come into common use, it seems desirable to 

 employ the same root in designating the matter which it is 

 the main purpose of biology to investigate. Bioplasm involves 



VOL. X. NEW SER. P 



