ORIGIN OF DISEASE AXD THE GEEM THEORY. 143 



a striking similarity to the two or more cells produced by the 

 division of a lowly-developed organism, each part of which is no 

 sooner set free than it proceeds to go, so to say, adrift, about 

 its own business, intent upon carrying out merely the objects and 

 pursuits of its own independent life. In inflammation properly 

 so-called, as it shows itself in higher animals, the simple pro- 

 cess here spoken of is complicated with other factors. The 

 migratory cells are even still more active, and stoppage of the 

 circulation and the consequent accumulation of leucocytes 

 and ozone-bearing corpuscles are prominent features of the 

 process. 



Now another step in pathological products which we have 

 to consider is one in which the growth and multiplication of 

 cells, instead of heing merely transitory phenomena, establish 

 themselves, more or less persistently, in a permanent form. It 

 may briefly and unhesitatingly be said that all neT7 formations, as 

 instances of which the enchondromata may be here mentioned, 

 are markedly characterised by the preponderance of cellular 

 elements modified in various ways and degrees. 



They may fibrillate and may even become calcified, but very 

 rarely, if ever, do they develop into the highest forms of tissue, 

 the muscular or nervous. Of course this is what we might 

 expect, since it is clear that the tissues of most important 

 specialisation must necessarily be produced, so to say, with 

 greatest difficulty. 



Speaking generally, we may say that all the tissues of all 

 organisms, both low and high, have been proved to be so much 

 like the modified results of primitive cells, more or less closely 

 blended together, that we may suppose them in all cases to have 

 arisen, directly or indirectly, from cells in the first instance. 

 We have now, however, to add this further fact above men- 

 tioned, viz. that those growths which are spoken of in patho- 

 logical language as new formations are also indubitably traceable 

 to the growth and proliferation of the same units, cells, or, at any 

 rate, cytodes, i.e. cells without the nucleus. Together with this, 

 we must also bear in mind the additional statement likewise above 

 made, viz. that the cells may be modified in various ways and 

 degrees, or, indeed, on the other hand, so little changed as to be 

 scarcely distinguishable from those parent cells which originally 

 gave them birth. In short, new formations clearly point to a 



