LIVING PARTICLES POISONOUS. 



T 39 



under favourable circumstances, be renewed by the 

 appropriation of nutrient matter by the white blood- 

 corpuscles which are intimately related to this living 

 bioplasm and take part in its formation. I believe they 

 bear to it the same relation as the " nucleus " in the 

 cell of Vallisneria bears to the living particles sus- 

 pended in the fluid, Fig. 62, pi. XVII., while the red 

 blood-corpuscles of the blood correspond to the chlo- 

 rophyl particles in the rotating fluid contents of the 

 vegetable cell. In this work attention will be drawn 

 to the vast importance of this living fibrin-forming 

 matter in various exudations, and it will be found that 

 a simple explanation of many most important morbid 

 phenomena may be given. Now in the fluid exuda- 

 tion or virus which produces a " poisoned wound " 

 w r hen inoculated we also find minute particles of 

 living bioplasm. 



Many arguments will be advanced in this treatise 

 in favour of the view that the virulence of the poison 

 is due entirely to the living particles, and not to the 

 fluid in which these are suspended. In the case of 

 some of these poisonous fluids we are able to study 

 the production of the contagious virus, and we may 

 even in some cases succeed in tracing out the manner 

 in which the material with the wonderful poisonous 

 property originates. 



In some forms of inflammation of serous membranes 

 the process may be made out, and a conception 

 formed of the several changes which occur, and at 



