OF THE GLOBULE OR CELL. 3 



be applied only to those phenomena of changes that may be 

 likewise encountered in dead nature. 1 



These metamorphoses of globular elements are accom- 

 panied by chemical and physical phenomena that cannot be 

 disregarded, because they figure as effects or even as assist- 

 ant causes of vital acts ; as, for example, the simple mechan- 

 ical transportations (circulation) whereby the globules are 

 brought together. Being obliged to study these phe- 

 nomena side by side with those which we call essentially 

 vital, we can say, in a more general sense, that the object 

 of physiology is the study of all the phenomena that take 

 place in the organism. Yet it is with the cell in general 

 that we should commence our study, and around this we 

 can then group all the rest, since the cell alone is the essen- 

 tially vital element. 2 



JI. OF THE GLOBULE OR CELL. ITS PROPERTIES. HISTORI- 

 CAL REVIEW. 



GLOBULES, essentially living elements, are especially char- 

 acterized by their microscopic dimensions ; their diameter 

 varies between T n and jfo of a millimetre ; one only, the 

 ovum, attains a size sufficiently large to be distinguished by 

 the naked eye. This extreme minuteness explains why we 

 could not recognize what might be called the essence of 

 vital phenomena, until the time that microscopes gave us an 

 opportunity of examining the extremely small objects in 

 which these vital phenomena have their seat. 



1 Vide P. Ad. Rousseau, " Role et Importance du Globule en 

 Physiologic." These de Strasbourg, 1866, No. 965. 



* In the olden time, when the microscope was not known or 

 used in the study of living tissues, various theories of vital phe- 

 nomena were used to explain the principles of physiology. At one 

 time the agency of spirits, at another the pneuma or breath, at 

 another archaeus, at another (f>\6yos, were used to explain the occult 

 causes of these phenomena ; later still a power or force called 

 vital was brought forward. An insurmountable objection to such 

 theories lay in the fact that these were all occult agencies, capable 

 of being proved simply by a process of mental reasoning, and re- 

 sulting in the establishment of unsound and unavailable doctrines. 

 The cell theory has no such objection. A cell can be seen under a 

 microscope, and its special properties studied and classified, and 

 the doctrines resulting are both sound and available. 



