130 



DEA TH AND DECOMPOSITION 



slight alterations would be fatal to others higher in 

 the scale. 



It is not possible to distinguish many pus corpuscles 

 from lymph corpuscles, white blood corpuscles, and 

 many other masses of germinal matter ; indeed, if 

 the developing brain of an embryo be examined at 

 an early period, it will be found that this important 

 structure consists of nothing more than a number of 

 spherical cells, which could not, by any means we are 

 yet acquainted with, be distinguished from many 

 forms of pus corpuscles. See " The Microscope in 

 Medicine," Plate XXIV, figs. 182, 183. If we carefully 

 reflect upon many observed facts, we shall be com- 

 pelled to admit that masses of germinal matter which 

 resemble one another in every character we can 

 ascertain, differ nevertheless remarkably in power, as 

 is proved by the results of their living. Few recent 

 writers seem to have fully recognized the remarkable 

 truth that living things may agree in physical and 

 chemical characters, but nevertheless differ widely in 

 power ; that transcendent difference in vital power 

 may be associated even with similarity of composition, 

 so that we are quite prepared for the discovery that 

 the powers of certain forms of morbid bioplasm are 

 very different from those of the normal living matter 

 from which they have descended, although no differ- 

 ence whatever can be detected in their chemical 

 composition. 



Death and Decomposition of Pus. When pus bio- 



