436 BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS 



foundation laid for the corpuscular organisation of the 

 blood materials, and the conveyance thereby of the nutri- 

 tive pabulum required by the various organs and tissues 

 of the body. Along the sanguineous channels of the 

 great blood circulation the corpuscular vehicles, in the 

 shape of red and white globules, take up and convey to 

 the most distant parts and apparently inaccessible " holes 

 and corners " of the body the fresh materials for organic 

 exchange, accompanied by the great fluid sweep and 

 onward flood of liquor sanguinis, all of which are 

 required for the accomplishment of the " thousand and 

 one " processes of repair and removal, and the mainten- 

 ance of structural health, which begin and end with life, 

 and which together constitute the organic phenomena 

 of life. 



Up to this point, in the process of vitalisation and 

 distribution of food plasma, the living units may be 

 regarded as molecular, granular, and corpuscular in their 

 development, and free and unattached in their movements, 

 possessing a dynamic potency and power of material 

 distribution fitting them to minister to the wants of fixed 

 or non-mobile cell organisms ; but here, where the integral 

 organised structures proper of the body are reached by 

 the blood streams, or mobile fluid elements, a new principle 

 in the process of nutrition comes into use, in virtue of 

 which the fixed and non-mobile elements of that body are 

 ministered to by the mobile elements floated to them in 

 the form of these molecular, granular, and corpuscular 

 units. And here, moreover, what may be described as 

 the first great step in the ultimate phenomenon of 

 metabolism is effected by the primary fixing and incorpora- 

 tion of anabolic plasma, and its complete vitalisation and 

 assimilation on, it may be called, the "heels" of preceding 

 katabolism. 



When the process of cell development and interstitial 

 incorporation of vitalised plasma has been reached, and 

 when the cell units have so multiplied that the simple and 

 elementary machinery of intra-cellular or nucleolar vitalisa- 

 tion has been outgrown, and when sympathetic innervation 

 can no longer overtake the vital necessities of the poly- 

 cellular organism, the grouping and arrangement of its 



