168 The Microscope, 



protoplasm was almost ruled out of existence. We know already 

 what meaning von Mohl had attached to the term protoplasm ; 

 but in the eyes of Max Schultze protoplasm was synonymous 

 with " cell-body," and by this he understood the peripheral layer, 

 or utricle of von Mohl ; still other authors took protoplasm as 

 synonymous with periplasma and ectoplasma. With Kupffer 

 in 1875 protoplasm was only the fibrous network (reticulum), 

 the rest of the protoplasmic mass he called paraplasma, and 

 Strasburger (1882), committed the opposite mistake of making the 

 meaning of protoplasm too general, for he called protoplasm all 

 that has life in the cell, i e., protoplasm, nucleus, chlorophyll 

 bodies, etc., (by right he should also have added the cell mem- 

 brane for it too has life). The end of all these distinctions was 

 that there was no distinction left between protoplasm and the 

 cell, and therefore cell and protoplasm should be considered as 

 synonyms. 



This was not all, for some writers began to use their own terms 

 for that of the classic one of protoplasm ; chief among these we 

 find Haeckel (who is always fond of introducing something new) 

 and Kolliker (1862) who employed the term cytoplasma. But 

 enough about this abuse of terminology. The scientists had 

 imitated the philosophers, and were quarreling about words, and 

 Laneseau justly censures this state of affairs in the following 

 words : " Nothing is more indeterminate than the meaning of 

 the word ' protoplasm ; ' in fact, every author uses it in his own 

 sense." 



The quarreling about the meaning of words had drawn away 

 the attention of observers from the real point of interest, 

 viz. the structure of protoplasm, and in the heat of discussion 

 over trivial points, most authors even did not suspect that struc- 

 ture and organization to exist which Dujardin had foreseen. 

 No doubt however, cells having a visible structure had been 

 known and had even been observed since the time of Fontana, 

 as for example, muscular cells, epithelial cells, nerve cells, etc. ; 

 but their structure was regarded as proper to these cells only, a 

 result, so to speak, of adaptation to their peculiar function. In 

 1859 Stilling had discovered a fibrous structure in the ganglionic 

 oells of nerves, and in 1864 Leydig observed the same structure 

 in the epithelial cells lining the interior of the intestines of the 

 Onisciis and other allied crustaceans, but no one attached any 

 importance to these discoveries. 



