1 1 8 BIOPLASM OF EPITHELIUM 



morbid instead of normal healthy organisms. It may 

 be that the matter of the malarial poison may thus 

 result, in which case it must be regarded as a morbid 

 bioplasm of some low organism, not as a species of 

 any kind whatever, but as a deteriorated form of 

 living matter freely multiplying but incapable of pro- 

 ducing healthy matter or of returning to its primitive 

 healthy state. 



I propose now to draw attention to the facts I have 

 been able to observe in connection with the deteriora- 

 tion in power of bioplasm during that increased 

 multiplication which results from the very free supply 

 of pabulum, and which may at last lead to the 

 production of diseased germs. 



Bioplasm of Epithelium. When the germinal matter 

 of the epithelial cells of certain mucous membranes, 

 or that of other tissues of the body, or the germinal 

 matter of the white blood-corpuscles, lives faster than 

 in health, in consequence of being supplied with an 

 undue proportion of nutrient material, it grows and 

 multiplies to an enormous extent ; so that one mass 

 may perhaps be the parent of five hundred, in the 

 time which, in a perfectly healthy state, would be 

 occupied in the production of two or three cells. And 

 in some ordinarily very slowly-growing tissues, the 

 germinal matter may in disease divide and subdivide 

 very quickly, although in the healthy state it would 

 undergo scarcely any appreciable change in the 

 course, perhaps, of several weeks or months. The 



