SUSPENDED ANIMATION 179 



after their preservation as mere dust for many months 

 dried on a glass-slip they could be revived and made to 

 return to life by wetting them with a minute drop of 

 water, whilst the whole process of revival was watched 

 under the microscope. Letters were published in the 

 " Times " in the " fifties " by the Rev. Lord Sydney 

 Godolphin Osborn, describing his observations and ex- 

 periments on these animalcules. 



The yellow slime-fungus called " flowers of tan," after 

 creeping as a naked network of protoplasm over the 

 " spent tan," thrown out from tan-pits, will in dry 

 weather gather itself into little knobs, each of which is 

 as hard and brittle as a piece of sealing-wax. Yet (as 

 I have repeatedly experienced in using material given 

 to me by the great botanist, de Bary) a fragment of one 

 of these hard pieces, if carefully guarded in a dry pill-box 

 for two or three years, will when placed on a film of water 

 at summer-heat gradually absorb moisture and expand 

 itself into threads of creeping, flowing protoplasm, nourish 

 itself, and grow and reproduce. It was formerly suggested 

 in regard to these cases of resuscitation after drying, as 

 also in the case of seeds which germinate after being kept 

 in a dry condition for many years, that really they were 

 not thoroughly dried, but were sufficiently moist to allow 

 of very slow oxidation and gas exchange, which it was 

 said was so small in amount as to escape observation. 

 There was a plausible comparison of the condition of 

 these dried organisms to that of hybernating mammals, 

 desiccated snails, and comatose men. It was held that 

 here, too, the life-processes were not absolutely arrested, 

 but reduced to an imperceptible minimum. 



This view of the matter was connected, no doubt, 

 with a traditional assumption that life was an entity an 

 " anima animans " which entered a living body, kept it 

 continually " going " or " living," and if driven out from 



