OF THE GLOBULE OR CELL. 7 



which are not globules, but derive their properties from and 

 are in intimate association with these globules. 



Tenacity of Composition. But of all the properties 

 belonging to their composition, the most important and 

 essentially vital is their tenacity of maintaining their consti- 

 tution in spite of the surrounding elements ; and, moreover, 

 their power or property of repelling or of assimilating cer- 

 tain substances by a veritable selection. Exposed to an 

 atmosphere greedy of moisture, a living globule does not 

 lose its watery constitution ; it is in this way that the cells 

 of the integument, in the animal as in the plant, maintain 

 in the interior of the organism the moisture necessary to 

 life. It is in this way that the blood globule, rich in potash 

 and in phosphates, floats in a fluid (liquor sanguinis) rich 

 only in soda and almost destitute of the preceding salts, and 

 still the globule retains its potash, and repels the soda by a 

 veritable phenomenon of repulsion, essentially vital. Here 

 the laws of osmosis lose their force, for they encounter living 

 elements. The same blood globule is loaded with oxygen in 

 the lungs, and becomes the vehicle of its transport through 

 the economy. We can also cite the example of the epithe- 

 lium of the urinary bladder, which offers a perfect barrier to 

 the passage of urine through its walls, a passage easily effected 

 six or seven hours after the death of the patient, and then 

 only because this epithelium has ceased in its turn to live. 



In opposition to the so-called phenomena of rejection, we 

 have another instance in which the globule favors, on the con- 

 trary, absorption : thus the epithelium of the intestine at a 

 certain time, and under the irritation of the gastric juice, 

 allows the absorption of the elaborated aliments, and with so 

 much rapidity that it is almost impossible to study the details 

 of this phenomenon. 



Life of the Globule. Its life is in our eyes the most 

 essential characteristic of the globule. This element is born, 

 performs its functions, and, at the end of a variable time, has 

 a tendency to disappear by means of very various transfor- 

 mations. These three phenomena, birth, life, and death, con- 

 stituting the metamorphoses or functions of the globule, occur 

 only under the influence of certain excitants. 1 In the vegeta- 



" Matter in itself is inert, even living matter, if considered in 

 the sense of deprivation of all free-will. Living matter, however, 

 is irritable, and can itself enter into activity and manifest peculiar 

 properties. ' ' (Bernard. ) 



We shall see that the nerve globule itself, which in the first 



