214 



material is clear, transparent, and as far as we are able to dis- 

 cover, destitute of structure. It appears like matter of 

 syrupy consistence which moves in all directions. No one 

 has been able to offer anything like an explanation of these 

 movements which every one can see. Authorities have 

 expressed themselves as if they had been able to give a full 

 and satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon, but there is 

 nothing in their statements to justify the confidence which 

 they seem to repose in the correctness of their own views. The 

 cause of these movements is unknown, if not unknowable. 



Bioplasm of Man. 



But it must not be supposed that this wonderful capacity 

 for movement and the power of taking up materials in the 

 medium which surrounds them and converting these into the 

 matter of their own bodies is a peculiarity of these very 

 simple forms of existence. The movements are even now 

 called amoeboid, as if they were a peculiar characteristic of 

 amosbse, but so far from this being so, these phenomena are 

 characteristic of the whole living Avorld. They are, however, 

 strictly confined to living beings, and nothing like them has 

 been shown to occur in non-living matter. In man and the 

 higher animals it is not always possible to see the movements 

 of the bioplasm, for a very slight change in the circumstances 

 imder which life is carried on may cause its death ; but in 

 some cases, and these not a few, they may be seen in the 

 living matter taken from man's organism, both in health and 

 also in the diseased state. 



The Living Matter or Bioplasm of Mucus. — If a little 

 mucus which collects commonly enough upon the soft mucous 

 membrane of the air passages be examined upon a warm 

 glass slide, with the aid of a power magnifying 700 diameters, 

 or upwards, little oval masses of germinal matter not unlike 

 amoeboe will be seen in great numbers embedded in the 

 viscid transparent material which gives to the mucus its 

 properties, and which has been formed by the particles of the 

 bioplasm. 



By attentive examination movements will be observed in 

 many of these masses, not unlike those above described in 

 the case of the amajbee. If the distribution of nutriment to 

 the mucus be increased, the biojilasts enlarge, and divide 

 and subdivide until vast numbers result. In some cases the 

 entire mass appears to consist of the form of biojilasts ordi- 

 narily termed pus corpuscles, while the proportion of formed 

 material which was abundant in ordinary mucus is exceed- 



