32 



THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE 



at the boundaries of the whole body, at those of a hollow nucleus and of every 

 vacuole. I therefore had to have recourse to the hypothesis that a granule 

 may send out offshoots in great number, leading to the disappearance of the 

 central mass, and that these offshoots, melted together, may produce a con- 

 tinuous layer. By the union of many such areas an extensive layer could 



be produced, large enough to cover in the 

 whole protoplasmic body. (See Fig. 9.) 



"The presence of a layer of living sub- 

 stance on the outer surface of the body ex- 

 plains to us why every protoplasmic lump can 

 so easily take up foreign bodies, and why 

 vacuoles can form and disappear almost sud- 

 denly. We must imagine that the living 

 matter is capable of entering any of the de- 

 scribed states at any time, so that a flat 

 layer, for instance, may immediately change 

 into a net-work, and vice versd. When the 

 lump swells up through the addition of water, 

 the granules are torn apart and float freely in 

 the fluid, as occurs in swelled amoabse and 

 saliva-corpuscles. The breaking of the outer 

 shell, with escape of minute particles of the 



amosba, still endowed with life, and the process of the division, can also 

 easily be understood. . . . 



"In conclusion, I may draw attention to the fact that the amount of 

 living matter varies greatly within a limited bulk of protoplasm, both in 

 normal and morbid conditions. The colorless blood-corpuscles of persons ex- 

 hibiting signs of lymphatic, strumous, scrofulous constitution, contain much 

 less living matter than those of strong, vigorous persons. Further examina- 

 tions will in all probability teach us to make use of these differences for 

 practical purposes. I announced three years ago that the protoplasmic lumps 

 forming tubercle are characterized by a relatively small amount of living 

 matter. Last year I published my observations on pus-corpuscles, which 

 enable me, from the relative amount of living matter contained in an indi- 

 vidual corpuscle, to say from what kind of organism such a pus-corpuscle 

 is formed; whether the person from whom the pus comes is healthy and 

 strong, or weakened by chronic disease, as tuberculosis." 



FIG. 9. DIAGRAM OF THE 

 FLAT LAYER. 



The idea of a structureless protoplasm was little satisfactory. 

 Since 1873 this structure is known to be reticular, though the 

 reticulum itself, with all its iiodulations , allows of no further 

 discrimination of structure. How complicated the reticular or 

 filamentary structure of the nucleus may be, is brought to evi- 

 dence by the researches of Auerbach, Flemming, E. Van Beneden, 

 O. Hertwig, and others. The radiating " suns" as they appear 

 in the process of division of the nucleus, the " Karyokinesis" 

 of Flemming, become explicable by the presence of a substance 

 able to grow, to move, and to assume different shapes. 



