BACTERIA AND CELL GRANULES 



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would seem not out of place on this occasion. Altmann 

 considers the granula or cytoblasts, as he also terms them, 

 to be really living, and as homologous with Bacteria. We 

 seek in vain for any decisive proof of this view, for the 

 oft -asserted proliferation by division is nowhere proved. 

 That they are able to continue living outside the proto- 

 plasm, and more especially to increase, is indeed directly 

 denied by him, in opposition to Bdchamp. In 1890 the 

 function which, according to Altmann and his pupils, they 

 perform in the metabolism of fat is cited finally as a proof 

 of the vitality of the granules. Although this point does 

 not seem to me by any means sufficiently clearly estab- 

 lished, I will not go into it farther, since I am inexperienced 

 in this line. But as long as individual constituents of the cell 

 are not seen to persist when isolated, nor are distinct living 

 phenomena observed in them, it is very dangerous to speak 

 . of their life as something which they possess in themselves. 

 They are so far living, as long as the opposite is not proved, 

 in that they are parts of a living organism, so that the 

 granula may therefore be living in the same way as the 

 nucleus, even though they no longer betray any sign of life 

 after isolation. 



Are we then to regard the granula as homologous on 

 the whole with Bacteria, as Altmann assumes, to derive 

 them phylogenetically from Bacteria, and hence to look 

 upon the so - called matrix of the protoplasm, with 

 Altmann, as a kind of zooglsea jelly ? I think this is not 

 permissible. I argue quite apart from the fact that the 

 genetic connection between the numerous granular contents 

 of the very various kinds of cells, which Altmann unites as 

 granula, has first still to be proved. I depend rather on 

 the observation made by myself and others, that the Bac- 

 teria in like manner contain granula, and, moreover, granula 

 which we are completely justified in regarding as equivalent 

 to the chromatin granules of cell nuclei. Besides these, 

 however, there may be special granules, showing different 

 relations, in the Cyanophycece, which agree so closely 

 with the Bacteria. And why does not Altmann also 

 regard the sulphur drops of numerous Bacteria as granula ? 



