CHANGES IN FORMED MATERIAL. 



243 



In the process of inflammation, in the formation of 

 inflammatory products, as lymph and pus, in the production 

 of tubercle and cancer, we see the results of increased 

 growth and multiplication of bioplasts consequent upon the 

 appropriation of excess of nutrient pabulum on the part 

 of the bioplasm of the tissues, or of that derived from the 

 blood. In the shrinking, and hardening, and wasting 

 which occur in many tissues and organs in disease, we see 

 the effects of the bioplasm of a texture being supplied with 

 too little nutrient pabulum, arising sometimes from an altera- 

 tion in the pabulum itself, sometimes from undue thickening 

 and condensation of the formed material (cell-wall or tissue) 

 which forms the permeable septum, intervening between the 

 pabulum and the bioplasm. 



The above observations are illustrated by what takes 

 place when pus is formed from an epithelial cell, in which 

 case the nutrition of the bioplasm, and consequently its 

 rate of growth, is much increased. And the changes which 

 occur in the liver cell in cases of wasting and contraction of 

 that organ (cirrhosis) may be adduced as an illustration of a 

 disease which essentially depends upon a slower rate of 

 change than would occur in the normal condition, conse- 

 quent upon the access of pabulum to the bioplasm being 

 interfered with by undue thickening and hardening of the 

 surrounding formed material. 



When normal cells pass from the embryonic to the fully- 

 formed state, the outer part of the bioplasm undergoes con- 

 version into formed material, and this last continues to in- 

 crease. Though the supply of the pabulum may be reduced 

 the conversion of the already existing bioplasm into formed 

 material proceeds. And when bioplasm in the adult which has 



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