ORGANIZATION AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITION- 257 



doms — i.e., real living beings — we already see less 

 rigour in the laws governing chemical constitution 

 and cellular organization. 



Experiments in merotomy — i.e., in amputation — 

 carried out on the nervous element by Waller, on 

 infusoria by Brandt, Gruber, Balbiani, Nussbaum, 

 and Verworn, show us the necessity of the presence 

 of the cellular body and the nucleus — i.e., of the in- 

 tegrity of the cell. But they also teach us that when 

 that integrity no longer exists death .does not imme- 

 diately follow, A part of the vital functions continues 

 to be performed in denucleated protoplasm, in a cell 

 which is mutilated and incomplete. 



Vital Phenomena in CrusJied Protoplasm. — It is 

 true also that grinding and crushing suppress the 

 greater part of the functions of the cell. But tests 

 with pulps of various organs and with those of certain 

 yeasts also show that protoplasm, even though ground 

 and disorganized, cannot be considered as inert, and 

 that it still exhibits many of its characteristic pheno- 

 mena ; for example, the production of diastases, the 

 specific agents of vital chemistry. Finally, while we 

 do not know enough about the actions of which the 

 secondary elements of protoplasm — its granulations, 

 its filaments — are capable, which this or that method 

 of destruction may bring to light, at least we know 

 that actions of this kind exist. 



To sum up, we are far from being able to deny that 

 rudimentary, isolated vital acts may be produced by 

 the various bodies that result from the dismember- 

 ment of protoplasm. The integrity of the cellular 

 organization, even the integrity of protoplasm itself, 

 are therefore not indispensable for these partial 

 manifestations of vitalftv. 



