THE CELL DOCTRINE. 61 



nucleus surrounded by a molecular blastema was sufficient 

 to constitute a cell; then he says that the outer part of 

 this cell blastema consolidates and forms a cell wall 

 as Beale has shown, and that this takes place in the 

 amoeba when placed in water.* 



As thus defined, the cell is the seat of pathologi- 

 cal and physiological processes rather than the blood, 

 or the nerves. The cell is active, the ultimate mor- 

 phological element in which there is any manifesta- 

 tion of life, and beyond which the seat of real action 

 cannot be removed. Hence the term Cellular Pathol- 

 ogy rather than humoral, or neural, or solidistic. The 

 so-called exudations are not such in the strict sense of 

 the term, and the cells which they contain, whether 

 of pus or organizable lymph, are the result of pro- 

 liferation of previously existing cells. Even "fibrin, 

 wherever it occurs in the body external to the blood, 

 is not to be regarded as an excretion from the blood, 

 but as a local production," resulting from the activity 

 of the cells of the tissue in which it is found, and con- 

 veyed to the surface by the transudation of the serous 

 fluids alone. f In the above statements we have the 

 first distinctive feature of Virchow's theory. 



Again, since every organized body is usually made 

 up of a number of these cells, each independent in 

 itself, yet combined and arranged for the attainment 

 of a special end, and therefore mutually dependent, 

 there result certain communities or cell territories 

 into which the body is portioned out by Virchow. 



* Letter from Berlin, in Edinburgh Medical Journal, February, 

 1865. 



f Virchow, op. cit., pp. 435-6. 



