CHANGES IN THE CELL IN DISEASE. 59 



the process of increase and multiplication. Even the 

 apparently very active contractile tissue of muscle has no 

 capacity for increase or formation. If soft or diffluent, a 

 portion of the formed material may collect around each of 

 the masses into which the germinal matter has divided, but 

 it does not grow in or move in and form a partition, as has 

 often been stated. When a septum or partition exists, it 

 results not from "growing in," but it is simply produced by a 

 portion of the germinal matter undergoing conversion into 

 formed material of which the partition is composed. (PI. V, 

 fig. 15 a and b.) 



Of the Changes in the Cell in Disease. I have en- 

 deavoured to show that of the different constituents of 

 the fully formed cell, the germinal matter is alone con- 

 cerned in all active change. This is in fact the only 

 portion of the cell which lives, while at an early period 

 of development, some of the structures usually regarded as 

 essential to cell existence are altogether absent, and the cell 

 is but a mass of germinal matter. But it must be borne in 

 mind that at all periods of life, in certain parts of the 

 textures and organs, and in the nutrient fluids, are masses 

 of germinal matter, destitute of any cell-wall, and exactly 

 resembling those of which at an early period the embryo 

 is entirely composed. White blood and lymph corpuscles, 

 chyle corpuscles, many of the corpuscles in the spleen, 

 thymus and thyroid, corpuscles in the solitary glands, in 

 the villi, some of those upon the surface of mucous mem 

 branes, some in connection with muscle, nerve, bone, carti- 

 lage, and some other tissues, are of this nature, and consist 

 of living germinal matter, with mere traces of soft formed 



