450 



PHOTEVANGELIUM 



PROTOPLASM 



ditl'u-e light persist*. A nearly relattl genus, 

 Necturus, liven in Nurtli American rivets and 



Proteus angniniu. 



lakes. The name I'rotens animalcule was formerly 

 used .-i- a synonym for Amucba (q.v.). 



ProtevanifHilllll. a very old apocryphal 

 gospel attributed to .hum 1 -, the brother of the 

 Low (Bee APOCRYPHA): also used of a primitive 

 gospel (Ger. Ur-evuiujctiiim), from which it has 

 Been held several of our gospels were derived. See 



Goonu. 



ProtoroccilS (Or., 'first-grain '), a genus of 

 very simple unicellular green plants, one species 

 of which (P. virulis) is everywhere abundant as a 

 green film on tree-trunks and dump walls, or in 

 stagnant rain-water. The colour is sometimes 

 reddish, and the organism may l>e found passively 

 encysted during drought, mid at other times actively 

 motile with a couple of cilia. See Ai.c i.. 



Protocol (Gr. prdtos, 'first;' and kolln, 'glue'), 

 (1 ) the rough draft of an instrument or transaction. 

 and more particularly the original copy of a gov- 

 ernment despatch, treaty, or other document ; (2) a 

 record or register. 



Protogcne ((Jr., 'lirst-lxirn'), a granitic rock, 

 composed of the same ingredients as true granite, 

 but the mica is more or less altered so as to 

 resemble talc, for which it was formerly mistaken. 

 It received it- name because it was supposed to 

 have been the first-formed granite. It abounds in 

 the Alps, and is found also in Cornwall The clay 

 produced by its decomposition is greatly valued for 

 the manufacture of china. I'rotogene is now recog- 

 nised to be simply an altered granite. 



Prot o'lU'lirs. a painter of ancient Greece, was 

 Imrn at Cautin- in ('aria, and urac-ti-ed his art at 

 Khodes, where he worked steadily on through the 

 din of the siege of .'{05 .'{04 II. c. A contemporary and 

 friend of Apelles (<).v.), he was a slow and careful 

 painter, sparing no pains to secure a natural and 

 finished piece of workmanship. His best-known 

 pictures were lalysns (a Khodian celebrity), a 

 Satyr, ' Paralos ami Ammonias' (sacred ships of 

 the Athenians, executed for the I'ropyl.ea at 



Athens), 'The Thes theta-' (for the Athenian 



senate-house), 'Alexander and Pan,' 'Cydippe 

 and Tlcptolcmiis,' and some portrait-. 



PrOfOIIO|sis. See M KNOPOMK. 



Profo-notary. a memlier of the College of 

 Proto notaries Apostolic in the papal curia, who-e 

 duties are to icgi-ter pontifical acts, make and keep 

 the records of licatilications, &c. 



Pr*tOhytM(Gr. /'i-ntiifi/ii/ta, 'first plant*'), 

 A term often applied to the simplest plants, such a* 

 I'roloeoocim in the algoid. and Bacteria in the fun- 

 goid scries. See Al.<; i . II.MTKKIA. 



Protoplasm /./.'./<. ' first,' plasma, 'formed 

 ubntance ) is a technical name for living matter. 



The term was first applied (1846) by the liotanist 

 Hugo von Mold to the 'slimy, granular, .-emi fluid ' 

 contents of vegetable cells, 'lint Ik-fore that Ko.-el 

 \on Kosenhof ( 1755) had studied the amo-ba. which 

 is a unit-mass of relatively pure living matter, 

 1 Solicit Urown and other botanists had watched the 

 rotation of the living substance inside the cells of 

 some plants, and Dnjardin (ls:t.">) had de-criKed 

 the 'sarcode' of l''oraminifera as 'a glutinous, 

 transparent, living jelly.' After Dujardin ami 

 Von Mold had thus directed attention to -.-iK-ode ' 

 and 'protoplasm,' observations on IMI||I gradually 

 accumulated, the idea liegan to he mooted that the 

 two substances were essentially the same, and in 

 1861 Max Schullze delincd the cell as a nucleated 

 mass of living matter or protoplasm. \\ c cannot 

 indeed say that the protoplasm is the same in the 

 cells of plants and animals, for the prcci-e nature 

 of living matter defies our analysis; but we do 

 know that 'the physical basis of life' has in all 

 cases some common characteristic- of structure and 

 liohaviour, diverse as are the ways in which its 

 inherent activity may lie manifested. 



Protoplasm may he conveniently studied in the 

 unicellular Protoxoa e.g. Amtelxe and Foramin- 

 ifera; in the colourless cells of blood; in the ova 

 of animals e.g. of frog anil pond-snail ; in young 

 vegetable shoots ; or in the cells of a simple plant, 

 like Chara or Spirogyra. When we submit the 

 living matter in its natural state to microscopic 

 examination we usually see a clear semi-llnid 

 substance, sometimes obscured by granules, some- 

 linn's with numerous bubbles or vacuoles, some- 

 times with hints of a line network traversing the 

 whole. This vacuolated and raticular structure is 

 much more easily demonstrated after the cells have 

 len 'fixed' and stained, and, if necessary, 'sec- 

 tioned ' according to the practice of microscopic 

 technique. In this state the network-like appear- 

 ance of the cell-substance has been demonstrated 

 in a great number of cases, and we may fairly 

 regard it as characteristic (see CKI.L). 



As the students of structure have been led with 

 increasing carefulness of microscopic analysis to 

 distinguish between the netted framework and a 

 more fluid stun" in its meshes, so many physio- 

 logists distinguish the framework as the acting 

 part, which lives and is relatively stable, from the 

 content which is acted on, ami is in a state of 

 physical and chemical change. It is clearly 

 necessary to discriminate lietween protoplasm in 

 the strict sense and the substances with which the 

 genuinely living matter is associated food-stuffs 

 alHiut to lie or lx>ing utilised, and waste-products 

 which result from the vital activity. The food- 

 grannies and the waste-products we can analyse 

 they may lie respectively glycogcn and uric acid; 

 the living matter we cannot analyse, for it dies at 

 the moment our analysis begins. 



All physiologists arc agreed that waste products 

 are formed when work is done or while life la-ts, 

 and that living organisms have a characteristic 

 power of repair. They are ever changing, and yet 

 they remain more or less the same. Stream- of 

 matter and energy pass into the organism; they 

 are somehow Incorporated into the living capital, 

 work is done ami waste is given oil, and the organ- 

 ism continues from day to day, or from year to 

 year, relatively intact. For while 'the transfer 

 of ciierg\ into any inanimate material system is 

 attended by ell'ecti rctardative to the transfer and 

 conducive to dissipation,' the secret of protoplasm, 

 as expressed by Joly in the language of physics, 

 is that 'the transfer of energy into any animate 

 material system is attended by ellectB conducive to 

 the transfer and rctardative of di ipation. ' 



So far we have stated fart-; speculation begins 

 when we try to express the precise relations of the 



