248 DORMANT STATE 



from one another, belong to one class or order of 

 living matter or bioplasm. 



As every known living thing consists at one period 

 of a little, clear, transparent, structureless, living, 

 moving matter, which exhibits precisely the same 

 characters in every case, though possessing powers so 

 wonderfully different as the various tissues and 

 organs of man and animals all result from masses of 

 living matter not to be distinguished from one another 

 except in the results of their life there is nothing, 

 regarding the matter from this point of view, to deter 

 us from accepting the conclusion to which we are led 

 by actual observation, that the poisons of the different 

 contagious diseases could not be distinguished from 

 one another by microscopical examination or by 

 chemical analysis. 



Disease Germs may long remain Dormant, though 

 alive. Just as a seed may remain perfectly quiescent, 

 but nevertheless in a living state, for a long period of 

 time, without growing or giving any evidence of 

 vitality, so, there is reason to think, many kinds of 

 bioplasm may remain in a living, but almost dormant 

 state, in the system, ready to spring into activity 

 should the conditions favourable to their exist- 

 ence be brought about, and the pabulum adapted 

 for their nutrition be at hand. Unquestionably the 

 morbid bioplasm of certain kinds of tubercle and 

 syphilis may exist for years in a quiescent state. 

 The development of the forms of disease characteristic 



