GERMINAL MATTER IN DISEASE. 63 



bulk. Cells of particular organs, which live very slowly in 

 health, live very fast in certain forms of disease. More 

 pabulum reaches them, and they grow more rapidly in 

 consequence. 



It is by this process of increased multiplication and 

 reproduction of certain kinds of germinal matter of the 

 organism, under altered conditions, that the germs which 

 constitute the material particles of contagious diseases 

 result. These living particles (contagium) having acquired 

 during multiplication new and peculiar properties not pos- 

 sessed by the germinal matter from which they originally 

 sprung, retain these properties and reproduce their kind a 

 million fold whenever placed under conditions favourable 

 to the process, though the operation may be fatal to the 

 organism in which it occurs. 



In cells which have been growing very rapidly and are 

 returning to their normal condition, in which the access of 

 nutrient pabulum is more restricted than in the abnormal state, 

 as is also the case in normal cells passing from the em- 

 bryonic to the fully-formed state, the outer part of the 

 germinal matter undergoes conversion into formed material, 

 and this last increases although the supply of pabulum is 

 reduced. 



From these observations it follows that disease may re- 

 sult in two ways either from the cells of an organ growing 

 and multiplying faster than in the normal state, or from 

 their doing so more slowly. In the one case, the normal 

 restrictions under which growth takes places are diminished ; 

 in the other, the restrictions are greatly increased. Pneumonia, 

 or inflammation of the lung, may be adduced as a striking 



