360 Tue Microscope. 
substance also, we will have to say: The basis-substance is alive 
or pervaded by living matter the same as is protoplasm. ‘hus: 
we can understand that in normal, but especially in the inflamed 
cornea, the basis-substance changes its appearance almost con- 
tinually under our very eyes, just as the sky changes by the 
condensation and dispersion of the clouds. This diseovery and 
comparison were first made by 8. Stricker in Vienna, who, since 
1880, has been a convert to my own biological views. 
The cell doctrine is a mistake and not in accordance with the 
simplest facts of histology, as displayed by a piece of corneal 
tissue. In faet, every particle of any tissue of the body serves 
as a pulley to overthrow the cellular theory held by most hist- 
ologists for just fifty years, 7. e. since 1859, when first established 
by Theodore Schwann. 
The beaded threads of a dark violet or nearly black color are, 
as is generally admitted, the ultimate terminations of the nerves, 
the so-called axis fibrillee, into which the axis cylinder profusely 
splits upon approaching the surface of the body. What is the 
axis eylinder? What are its radicles, the axis fibrille? The 
answer is: Condensed formations of living matter. The reticu- 
lum is here extended in a linear direction, made up of alternate 
beads and filaments, continuous both in the longitudinal direc-' 
tion and with the reticulum of living matter of the cornea cor- 
puscles, with which the axis fibrillae inosculate. Not only are 
the protoplasmic tracts of the cornea freely supplied with nerves, 
but the basis-substance also, the finest and ultimate nerve fila- | 
ments blending with the reticulum of living matter therein en- 
closed. 
The central gray substance of the brain and spinal cord, the 
same as the so-called “ganglion cells,” are traversed by and 
made up of a rich network of living matter. This gives rise to 
the axis cylinders in exactly the same manner in which the axis 
fibrillee terminate in the peripheral cornea corpuscles. Since the 
cornea is an extremely sensitive tissue, we realize the continuity 
of nerve action. Contraction of the living matter at the peri- 
phery is carried through the nerves by an identical process, viz., 
contraction in a linear direction, to the central nerve organ and 
is felt there as pain. Motor impulse, on the contrary, is a con- 
traction of the living matter, starting in the centre, carried to the 
muscles and resulting in a contraction of the muscle fibres. 
