468 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [42] 
which this tissue decreases in quantity, not only by self-disintegration, 
but by protoplasm (organized albumen), being transformed to not or- 
ganized, soluble albumen, which is absorbed by the juices of the body 
(‘liquidation’). 
The same tissue may to-morrow absorb, under different circumstances, 
the same substances which it has given up to day, and grow at their 
expense. 
The conditions of the giving up of albumen are insufficient breathing, in- 
sufficient in proportion to the energy displayed in the dividing processes 
(Spaltungs-vorgdnge), and, more than anything else, an insufficient sup- 
ply of oxygen; this supply must not, however, go below a certain mini- 
mum for any length of time.* If this is not the case, the decrease con- 
tinues until the equilibrium has again been restored between the de- 
mand of the decreased quantity of tissue and the conditions of breathing. 
The conditions of growth and absorption of substances are, amongst 
the rest, an ample supply of oxygen and the proper evacuation of the 
products of disintegration. 
The substance which is formed is, besides salts containing phosphoric 
acid, principally albumen, for I have never found pepton either in 
the muscle of the trunk or in the blood of the summer or autumn sal- 
mon; whilst I have found in the serum of the blood more globuline than 
could in any way be supposed to come from the colorless blood-particles. 
This albumen may play the same part in the organism as the albumen 
contained in food which is absorbed by the intestines. Wherever the 
conditions favor disintegration it becomes disintegrated, and wherever 
the conditions favor new formation it forms new tissue. 
The former (disintegration) is more frequent in male salmon, especially 
late in summer and in autumn, when the products of disintegration 
(protamine, guanine, sarkine) gather in considerable quantities in the 
seminal ducts. 
The latter (formation), ¢. ¢., the economical use of albumen from the 
muscle of the trunk for building a new organ, is more frequent in female 
salmon, as their absolutely necessary consumption of albumen is very 
small. 
We, therefore, have here ‘“stock-albumen,” as Voit terms it, contain- 
ing substances which became disintegrated, if there are no organs which 
quickly absorb them and draw them away from the current of juices. 
I have always favored the distinction which Voit makes in this respect. 
It only became open to objection when, more through Voit’s pupils than 
through himself, they became unnecessarily mixed with rude mechanical 
hypothesis, relative to the ‘“‘current of juices rushing through the cells,” 
&e. Whenever this “stock-albumen” becomes rapidly disintegrated 
*The insufficient evacuation of carbonic acid or of other products may possibly be 
one of the principal causes of sudden death. Tissues with strongly alkaline reaction, 
such as the immature testicles of the Rhine salmon, can at certain periods stand an 
extraordinary loss of blood, which continues for some time as a normal phenomenon. 
