98 DR. LOUIS ELSBERG. 



these specimens I have verified by very numerous other ex- 

 aminations. 



My researches demonstrate, and so far as I know, demon- 

 strate for the first time, that the frame of cellulose, analogously 

 to the cement substance of animal epithelia and the basis 

 substance of other animal tissues, is pierced by either single 

 filaments of living matter or a reticulum with more or less 

 large accumulations of living matter, interconnecting all 

 neighbouring tissue elements, and that the plant, therefore, 

 like the animal, is one continu'ous mass of living matter, with 

 interspaces which contain some non-living material. 



The structure of plajit tissue may be illustrated by the 

 structure of hyaline cartilage of animals. For many years it 

 was believed that cartilage consists of a homogeneous non- 

 living basis substance in which are embedded, at various 

 distances apart, isolated living cartilage corpuscles — cartilage- 

 *^ cells" as they were called. The more or less convincing 

 observations made by Heitzmann, and after him by Hertwig, 

 Thin, Prudden, Spina, and Flesch, have shown this to be a 

 mistake; and the results which I obtained in tlie histological 

 examination of the cartilages of the larynx (published in the 

 ' Archives of Laryngology,^ October, 1881, and January, 1882), 

 have proved beyond question that hyaline cartilage is a filigree 

 of living matter, in the meshes of which lumps of basis 

 substance are embedded. According to the former view car- 

 tilage could be compared to a pudding, in the dough of which 

 a certain number of raisins are embedded ; in truth, it is like 

 a framework composed of larger and smaller raisins and bands 

 and strings of raisin substance, in tlie meshes or interspaces 

 of which blocks of dough are embedded. 



Just so in the tissue of plants, the so-called plant " cells/' 

 are connected one with the other, and blocks of cellulose fill 

 up the interstices in the network of living matter. 



Not to trespass too much upon the patience of the reader, I 

 must leave undetailed here the far-reaching consequences of 

 the " bioplasson doctrine " for the better understanding of the 

 relations and phenomena of plant life. 



