18 THE CELL DOCTRINE. 



the case with many eminent authorities who have 

 attempted to give his views. This, he says, is a 

 mere glue, evasated and concreted, not within the 

 fibres, but in the spaces betwixt them, in illustration 

 of which it is stated, that cartilages seem to be 

 scarcely anything else besides this glue concreted. 

 But these views of Haller were clearly not based 

 upon microscopic observation, though the microscope 

 had been for some time in use. For Haller himself 

 tells us that the fibre is invisible, and to be distin- 

 guished only by the " mind's eye," invisibilis est ea 

 fibra, sold mentis acie distinguimus* No allusion to the 

 cell beyond the imperfect description of the blood 

 corpuscles and spermatozoids appears to have been 

 made by Haller. 



Better founded, in being based upon observation, 

 was the theory of Wolf, and it contained many of 

 the elements of truth. For an available exposition 

 of these views, physiologists are much indebted to 

 Prof. Huxley, who in the able review already cited, 

 has presented them as agreeing partially, also, with 



* A singular discrepancy exists between these words of Haller 

 and those found in both the Latin and English editions of the 

 "elegant compend " of Haller's works printed in Edinburgh, the 

 former in 1766, and the latter (an edition in the possession of the 

 writer), in 1779, under the inspection of William Cullen, M.D. 

 In the latter, we have the following : "The solid parts of animals 

 and vegetables have this fabric in common, that their elements, or 

 the smallest parts we can see by the finest microscope, are either 

 fibres or an organized concrete. "i 



1 First Lines of Physiology. By the celebrated Baron Albertus Haller, 

 M.D. Translated from the correct Latin edition, and printed under the 

 inspection of William Cullen, M.D. Edinburgh : 1779. 



