t 



15^ LIFE AND *D'£ATH. 



anatomical basis, the ce//. The cellular theory sums 

 up the teaching of general anatomy or histology. 



At the beginning of the nineteenth century anatomy 

 was following a routine dating from ancient times. 

 It divided animal and vegetable machines into units 

 in descending order, first into different forms of 

 apparatus (circulatory, respiratory, digestive, etc.); 

 then the apparatus into organs examined one by one, 

 figuring and describing each of them from every 

 point of view with scrupulous accuracy and untiring 

 patience. If we think of the duration of these 

 researches — the Iliad, as Malgaigne says, already 

 containing the elements of a very fine regional 

 anatomy — and especially of the powerful impulse 

 they received in the seventeenth and eighteenth 

 centuries, we shall understand the illusion of those 

 who, in the days of X. Bichat, could fancy that the 

 task of anatomy was almost ended. 



As a matter of fact this task was barely begun, for 

 nothing was known of the intimate structure of the 

 organs. X. Bichat accomplished a revolution when 

 he decomposed the living body into tissues. His 

 successors, advancing a step in the analysis, dis- 

 sociated the tissues into elements. These elements, 

 which one would have thought were infinitely varied, 

 were reduced in their turn to one common prototype, 

 the cell. 



The living body, disaggregated by the histologist, 

 resolves under the microscope into a dust, every grain 

 of which is a cell. A cell is an anatomical element 

 the constitution of which is the same from one part 

 to the other of the same being, and from one being to 

 another; and its dimensions, which are sensibly 

 constant throughout the whole of the living world. 



