1 08 GRO WTH AND MUL TIPLICA TION 



derangement of the health necessarily accompanying 

 the change. The fact of the increase of the white 

 blood-corpuscles in apparently opposite conditions of 

 the system receives a simple explanation. A hyber- 

 nating animal cannot be said to be suffering from 

 disease, but nevertheless the blood in his capillary 

 vessels contains a vastly increased number of bioplasts, 

 and could hardly be distinguished from blood which 

 was stagnating in consequence of something im- 

 peding the circulation a state of things which would 

 be rightly regarded as disease. In this part of the 

 inquiry we seem indeed to be on the very confines of 

 disease ; in a sort of border-land where the healthy 

 process may so gradually and imperceptibly pass into 

 the morbid process that it would not be possible to 

 draw a distinction in words, nor would the appearances 

 which may be demonstrated by the eye enable us to 

 define with greater exactness the special condition. 

 In fact, up to this point there is no real difference. 

 The state of things I have described, if it continues 

 and if it leads to other changes, would be considered 

 evidence of disease. If, on the other hand, the circu- 

 lation soon returned to its normal rate, the increased 

 number of white blood-corpuscles in the capillaries 

 would soon pass into the circulation and become lost 

 in the mass of the blood, where they would undergo 

 further changes. There would be no stronger evidence 

 of even a temporary disturbance of the healthy con- 

 dition than was afforded perhaps by some trivial 



