248 ACTION OF TONICS. 



access to an organism, they may, like a parasite, grow and 

 multiply at the expense of nutrient pabulum which was 

 prepared for, and ought to be appropriated by, the bioplasm 

 of the normal tissues. But the bioplasm constituting disease 

 germs having descended from the bioplasm of the body, 

 cannot be regarded as truly parasitic. Parasites, it need 

 scarcely be said, are not produced by the host or by the 

 predecessors of the host. They are derived from parasites. 



The new properties or powers acquired by the disease 

 germ during its derivation from normal bioplasm are not 

 physical, but vital. No matter is added to or taken from 

 normal bioplasm during the time when in the course of 

 increased rate of growth it acquires such wonderful powers 

 of multiplication and destruction. 



The rate of growth of bioplasm in disease may be ac- 

 celerated or retarded by an alteration in the character of the 

 pabulum which is transmitted to it, and with the view of 

 influencing these changes w r e shall naturally search for 

 remedies which have the property of rendering tissues more 

 or less permeable to nutrient fluids, or which may alter the 

 characters of the nutrient fluid itself. Such considerations 

 have a very important bearing upon the practical treatment 

 of disease. 



It is easy to see, for example, how, according to the 

 views advanced, such a substance as alcohol must tend to 

 restrict the rapid multiplication of bioplasm when the pro- 

 cess is too active, and how it would tend, on the other hand, 

 to promote the advance of disease in organs where rapid 

 change in the cells characterizes the normal state. 



Action of Tonics. Many of the so-called tonics have the 

 property of coagulating albuminous fluids and solutions of 



