38 DR. BENCE JONES ON NUTRITION. 



is understood a smaller portion of one of these " cells," 

 in many tissues there will be a number of particles differing 

 in almost every character which can be assigned to them. 

 Some capable of being the seat of nutritive operations and 

 of most wonderful and, perhaps, rapid changes (vital), 

 having nothing in common with mere physical and chemical 

 actions ; others so passive that they may retain their general 

 characters and composition for centuries, and, although 

 capable of being altered by external conditions, have no 

 power of assimilation or increase. Every tissue and every 

 cell is composed of two different kinds of matter, and the 

 particles constituting each of these possess very different 

 properties. 



3. " Nutrition and oxidation," two great chemical actions, 

 " which constitute the mainspring of those forces which are 

 summed up in the word 'life.'" By this I conclude 

 Dr. Bence Jones intends to express the opinion that the 

 forces which constitute " life " depend upon, or spring 

 from, or are the result of, the two chemical processes of 

 oxidation and nutrition. Now, a thing must ' live' before 

 it can be nourished. The process of nutrition presupposes 

 the existence of something alive to be nourished. Many 

 lower beings, and many living cells from man himself, may 

 " live " without nutrition or oxidation always going on ; nay, 

 it would, T think, be far nearer the truth to say that oxida- 

 tion was opposed to vital forces rather than in part their 

 mainspring. At any rate, there are beings to which, accord- 

 ing to Pasteur, oxygen seems to act as a poison. " Life " 

 may undoubtedly exist without either nutrition or oxidation 

 always going on. Assuredly matter must not only live, but 

 die before it can be oxidised in the body. Unless oxidation 



