FROM HIGHER BIOPLASM. 



gases inimical to all life, it becomes appropriated by 

 the vegetable organisms, which grow and multiply 

 enormously. But these having continued to increase, 

 at length cease to multiply, and in their turn die. 

 The products resulting from their death may serve as 

 food for beings a little higher in the scale. 



But we have now to enquire, how, if they are 

 not actually formed there, these bacterium germs 

 get into the interior of a perfectly closed cell. There 

 is no real difficulty in accounting for the entrance of 

 these germs through the cell wall ; for although no 

 pores may be visible even with the aid of the highest 

 powers, still pores sufficiently large to permit the 

 passage of such very minute particles as the germs are, 

 necessarily may exist, if not in the fully-formed state 

 of the cell, at least at an early period of its develop- 

 ment. If we examine, under the highest powers oi 

 the microscope, fluid exudation which we know may 

 pass through membrane, and which, when examined 

 by ordinary means, appears perfectly clear, like water, 

 we frequently find in it minute particles of living 

 matter. By the -gL- the apparently clear fluid rotating 

 round the cells of vallisneria is resolved into multi- 

 tudes of extremely minute particles of colourless 

 matter, or bioplasm, every one of which possesses the 

 power of moving, and is alive. There is, then, nothing 

 improbable in the supposition that minute germs might 

 pass through the cell wall with the pabulum. They 

 would remain in the cell wall or tissue perfectly 



