200 The Microscope. 



stage, and is interconnected^vithout interruption throughout the 

 body.' 



"Again this at first strange and, for some reason or another 

 unwelcome, doctrine receives support from the investigations ot 

 botanists ; for, as Prof Goodale remarks, this protoplasmic inter- 

 communication between adjoining cells ' has been shown to be 

 so widely true in the case of the plants hitherto investigated, 

 that the generalization has been ventured on that all the proto- 

 plasm throughout the plant is continuous.' The position to 

 which we have traced this matter is, then, to the latest biology, 

 in any particular organism, a generally diffused and intercon- 

 nected substance, simple only in appearance under present opti- 

 cal aids, has taken the place of the circumscribed, more or less 

 isolated and independent, and recognizably complex vesicle 

 which was the physical basis of life to the science of fifty years 

 ago. In the words of Dr Heitzmann, according to the former view, 

 the body is composed of colonies of Amoebae ; according to the 

 latter, the body is composed of one complete Amoeba." 



Truth is welcome from whatever quarters it may come. When 

 the learned botanists have grasped my view so clearly, as Prof 

 Goodale has grasped it, there is hope that a majority of animal 

 biologists will also be convinced, sooner or later, of the simplicity 

 and correctness of the novel doctrine. It certainly means one 

 thing — that the cell theory is a fallacy. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE IL 

 So-called migratory cells from a lamella of a cat's cornea, stained with nitrate 



of silver; inflammation of twenty-four hours' standing. X 1200. 

 LL. The so-called migratory cells, unstained lumps of protojilasm within the 



original protoplasmic tracts. 

 KK. Broad oflshoots of the original protoplasmic tracts. 

 BB. Dark brown basis substance, pierced by a delicate light reticulum. 



CYTOLOGY OR CELLULAR BIOLOGY. 



VII. CELLS ARE INDIVIDUALITIES — THEY ARE STRUCTURED AND 



LIVING. 

 REV A. M. KIRSCH, C. S. C. 



AT present, all well informed men, know that the body of or- 

 ganized beings such as plants and animals consists of small 

 parts which, within certain limits, resemble one another. These 

 ultimate components have been called cells — a name, strictly 



