THE COLLOIDAL STATE. 45 



undertaken to obtain a better knowledge of the inner 

 structure of these jellies, partly from the standpoint of 

 the morphologist, partly from that of the physical chemist, 

 have not remained without influence upon important 

 problems in general physiology. 



The systematic investigations of BUTSCHLI, extending 

 over more than a decade, tended to show. that a fine 

 honeycomb structure is present in all jellies, that, for 

 example, ordinary solid gelatine when it has "set" con- 

 sists of a framework made up of delicate gelatine walls, 

 and that in this framework is contained a fluid gelatine 

 of a low concentration. Expressed physico-chemically, 

 every such jelly represents, therefore, a diphasic system, 

 for we call every physically or chemically homogeneous 

 constituent of a heterogeneous complexity a phase. Other 

 investigators looked upon the results they obtained in 

 expression experiments on jellies as furnishing further 

 proof for the existence in them of a homogeneous fluid 

 phase beside a solid supporting framework, and this in 

 spite of variations in the amount of gelatine contained in 

 the expressed liquid and its dependence upon the amount 

 of pressure employed. These observations have led to 

 the conclusion that living matter, too, is to be looked 

 upon as made up of a honeycomb structure just as other 

 colloids a view which has been more and more adopted 

 by physiologists and which has been utilized to render 

 intelligible mechanical and chemical changes which go on 

 in living matter. BUTSCHLI has, for example, used the 

 radiating figures which appear about gas-bubbles in 

 gelatine to explain the astrospheres which appear during 

 cell division, for an undisputed similarity exists between 

 the two pictures. Questions in absorption and the 



