NOT DEBRIS OR GRANULAR MATTER. 245 



and lastly, that these particles are capable of living 

 under many different conditions that they live and 

 grow at the expense of various tissue elements, and 

 retain their vitality, although the germinal matter of 

 the normal textures after growing and multiplying to 

 a great extent, has ceased to exist. 



But the reader will ask which of the particles seen in 

 the secretions from the nose and eyes, intestines, vagina, 

 and in the tissues, are the particles of contagium, for 

 it has been proved that in matter from all these situa- 

 tions, at least in cattle plague, the contagious pro- 

 perty resides. He will probably have gathered from 

 the statements made that I regard some of the most 

 minute particles present to be alone the active agents, 

 while the epithelial cells, the fungi and bacteria, are 

 probably as passive as the oil globules or crystals of 

 triple phosphate commonly met with. Particles which 

 I believe to be contagious are represented in Plates 

 XXIV to XXVIII, figs. 95, 97, 100, 101, 105, 107, 108, 

 113, and the bioplasm amongst the bundles of fibrous 

 tissue, represented in PL XXVI, figs. 103, 104, I think 

 consists entirely of particles, the smallest of which 

 would induce the cattle plague, if introduced into the 

 blood of an uninfected animal. Figs. 95, 97, 101, repre- 

 sent particles of the supposed contagium or active con- 

 tagious matter in the vessels. It would, I think, be 

 quite possible to devise experiments which would deter- 

 mine positively which is the real contagious matter. 

 The real contagious material has passed unnoticed, 



S 



