RAPID GROWTH OF BIOPLASM IN DISEASE. 25 



the contraction of this cavity, the hlood is driven 

 through the arteries of the system, and having tra- 

 versed the minute ramifications or capillaries, it 

 reaches the veins, and is at length poured into the 

 right auricle, the point from which we first com- 

 menced to trace the course of the circulation. 



But in all these highly complex operations a cardinal 

 fact must not be lost sight of, viz., that bioplasm takes 

 up the non-living pabulum and causes it to live, and 

 that portions of this bioplasm, from time to time, 

 undergo change and die, becoming resolved into 

 compounds which did not exist before. The food is not 

 simply dissolved and caused to pass into the blood as 

 would be inferred from the description usually given, 

 but millions of masses of bioplasm live and grow, 

 pass through certain stages, and die, yielding up the 

 products of their death, to be taken up by other 

 bioplasm-particles, situated in the walls of the vessels 

 and in the blood itself. 



41. Rapid grrowtta of bioplasm in tbe adult and in 

 old age. — Although therefore for the most part the 

 bioplasm of the tissues of the adult changes very 

 slowly (§ 28), there are parts of the body in every 

 complex animal and in man which, even in extreme 

 old age, contain bioplasm, which grows and changes 

 as fast as it does in early life. In the absorption 

 of the nutritious matter vast multitudes of little 

 naked masses of bioplasm take up, appropriate, and 

 change the constituents of the food. Thus these 

 little masses (jroiu. After having reached a certain 

 size little ofi'sets project from different parts of them, 

 and from time to time become detached. It is in 

 this manner that the masses multiply. 



42. Rapid growth of bioplasm in disease. — In 

 disease the restrictions under which bioplasm grows 

 in the tissues are in part removed, and growth takes 

 place as rapidly as, or even more rapidly than it 

 occurs in the case of the bioplasm of the embryo. 



